Scattered

iWork 08

Yesterday I posted about Numbers and I shyed away from posting about the other two apps in iWork ‘08; Pages and Keynote because the only thing out of those two apps that’s worth mentioning is “action builds” for Keynote.

Action builds is a very cool feature and to have it in a presentation software makes me say “finally”. Keynote has had animations in previous versions but not like this. Instead of building the motion in another application like Flash or Final Cut you can just create simple paths for our objects and build it within Keynote. The video reminds me of the few hours I’ve spent in Flash.

iLife ‘08

I don’t have any first hand use because I’m going to wait a few months for Leopard (since it’s bundled for free). But from the demos and the Apple press conference the new features are needed and the overhaul of iMovie was necessary. iMovie (Pre-08 ) although very simple and clean was abandoned after I purchased Final Cut Pro even though I don’t like editing in Final Cut Pro for home movies or short clips iMovie was just not cutting it.

Until I get the new version I’m not going to decide whether it’s as phenomenal as the Apple’s presentation makes it out to be or the demos on their site provide. Especially since people are already revolting from the new app and going back to the old iMovie. From what I’ve seen it’s a drastic improvement. I love the exporting options including direct to YouTube.

What I’m really looking forward to in the new iMovie is how it’s an actual video library now. Before importing clips into the project prevented me from wanting to make videos at all and almost every movie production application works that way. Now I can just import all of my DV into the application, easily scan through all of that video and simply create what I’ve promised Sara for so long.

Another notable feature coming is event sorting. Found in iPhoto it’s going to make it so much easier for our family to sort through the thousands of photos and make it easier to organize. It’s an outstanding way to organization and it’s a shame we don’t see it in any other application including flickr.