Mac Users: Thinking of "upgrading" to iLife 4?

[UdoKier]

DON'T DO IT!.

It's a waste of money. My iMovie and iDVD3 worked fine until I installed iLife. After that, burning a DVD took about 5 times longer. But luckily, within a few weeks, both applications stopped working altogether.

I scoured the THOUSANDS of complaints on their support page in hopes of finding a way to fix it. I tried everything. Fixing permissions, emptying caches, etc. etc.

Finally, since I was having some other problems I needed to fix anyway, I did a full backup and did a clean system install with iMovie 3 and iDVD 3. Both work fine.

The iLife package is a pery peculiar set of programs that are interdependent and the iMovie and iDVD are especially vulnerable to problems.

In spite of the huge number of people reporting the exact same problems, Apple seems to have no interest in ever fixing that lemon.

Mark my words: don't be suckered in!

[Placebo]

1. Hmm and I was just about to buy it

for the upcoming school year.

I was looking forward to some of the new iMovie and iPhoto features, but oh well! Thanks for the heads up :pals:

[Swamp Rat]

3. I've been using it since it came out and have had NO problems.

Panther and iLife are VERY cool for novices. Are you a musician? Garage Band is GREAT for begining sound engineers and musicians.

[UdoKier]

5. How fortunate for you.

I'm not a musician or AV mogul of any kind. I just like to edit and burn home videos.

If anybody thinks it's just me who had this experience, go here:

http://discussions.info.apple.com/idvd/

and here:

http://discussions.info.apple.com/imovie/

I LOVE my iMac, I've been a loyal Mac user for 12 years, but I have never been so disillusioned about a product as iLife.

[emulatorloo]

12. Cursory examination of your links reveals **BAD RAM** is causing problems

Several threads said that when they removed their CHEAP NO NAME CRAP RAM the problems went away.

I don't know what your specific problems are, but I do know that I had trouble with BAD RAM in the past.

Here is the ram vendor I use. . .they have a lifetime warranty on their stuff, they test throughly. When I had a stick go bad from them, they replaced it next day.

www.datamem.com

(PS I have iLife '04 and I love it)

[Chovexani]

17. Cheap no name RAM is the cause of a lot of problems

At least, in my experience. It can muck up so many different things it's not even funny.

I get mine locally from J&R Computer World (I like to support local shops, and they were especially hard hit by 9/11 'cause they are right near the WTC).

Best advice I ever heard was to be very careful when shopping for memory.

[Swamp Rat]

2. I did it and it works perfect. Not ONE problem ever.

Sorry about your problem. There IS a remedy waiting to be discovered.

Are you a registered Apple user? Give me a link and I'll take a look at it and see if I can help. By the way, I use OSX Panther, Final Cut Pro 4.1, Garage Band, Soundtrack, iPhoto, and a ton of cool, smaller apps. on an iMac 17" 1ghz.

Can't wait for the G5 iMacs to come out!

edit: Swamp Rats are bad at grammar.

[UdoKier]

4. Not worth the hassles.

I use the OSX Panther on a 17" iMac 1.25 Ghz. However, I'm not enough of areal AV guy to use any of those other apps (though I'll eventually get around to using iPhoto).

I am not interested in going back to iLife until they come out with one that burns FASTER than version 3, rather than UNBELIEVABLY slow. It's not worth the extra features.

I know there are some people for whom it has worked. But I have read uniformly that the burn time is much longer.

[SkipNewarkDE]

6. Great package!

iLife '04 is a wonderful package, Garage Band alone makes it worth the $49.00 price of admission. iMovie, iTunes, iDVD are all great packages.

That being said, there are some "quirks" with the software, potential issues, that arise due to the interdependence among the components.

When you install the applications, there is a potential for stuff to get out of sorts... If you look at the README file, or talk to Apple's tech support on the phone, they recommend you start the newly installed applications in the following order: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD. Starting the applications the first time in this order sets up the preferences and dependencies correctly, and prevents problems later on. The integration between the applications is what causes this.

iDVD IS a bit slower than in previous versions, primarily because it is using a different compression scheme which permits longer video project to be burned.

My guess is that you had some other weirdness causing this interaction. In the future, when stuff like this happens, root around in your Utilities folder (located in the Applications folder) and launch the application called Console. This is a utility that will allow you to view system messages which get dumped to the console. These messages are useful in figuring out what the application is doing, and a big help when you talk to tech support. In situations where something is taking longer than it should, quite often it is due to the program searching around for file dependencies, or trying to talk to something over a network... IF you aren't in a networked environment, turn off networking and see if your problem continues.

You can also launch the UNIX Terminal Shell, and execute a "top" command, which will tell how much CPU different applications are using. There could be something eating CPU cycles that you don't know about. I had a scanner driver absolutely wreck havoc with my system due to a faulty USB handling, thank-you HP.

[SkipNewarkDE]

7. Rather than going for a complete reformat

... of your system, you can excise most of iLife simply by throwing out the application bundles, tossing the preferences, and then looking in the Receipts directory located in the root-level /Library/Receipts directory. This will ensure that the system will properly reinstall the software, thinking that it is doing it cleanly.

[SkipNewarkDE]

8. Longer Burn Times in iDVD

Longer burns can occur in iDVD if you take advantage of some of the newer features included with the package. In general, if you use a theme which includes a moving background, it is going to take much longer to render. There are a lot of new themes which allow you to embed multiple video clips into the motion menus. Each of these videos requires rendering, thus increasing substantially the amount of time required to create your DVD.

Using a transition effect, such as rotating cube, or dissolve, to transition to a video or another menu will substantially increase rendering times as well.

The quickest burns are done with the menus that are static.

[Florida_Geek]

9. I wasted $3000 buying a Powerbook and things

and Apples non testings of their software made me go back to a REAL machine and operating system.

Fuck modems that will not dial out without problems, iPod is not compactiable with OS X etc etc etc

I will not go into the 99 dollars I wasted on dot Mac

[SkipNewarkDE]

10. iPod not compatible with OS X?

Huh?

[emulatorloo]

11. There is something wrong w your machine. . .get it looked at

if it is under warranty call apple or your dealer.

if it is not under warranty call your dealer.

[lil-petunia]

13. I've used all of the above

my 17" 1.333 ghtz G4 is a dream.

Not only is this monster fast, I NEVER go back to my XP brick for certain aps. They actually run better on virtual PC. (although, virtual PC crashes about 1/3 as often as the real thing - that is still too often) Anyone forcing me back to Windows will have to do it with me kicking, screaming, biting, fighting, farting in their general direction, etc.

I sometimes wander around in memory time and think back to when I sat next to the next speaker at a seminar. His Zenith clam was so cool looking. Could double as a ocean liner's anchor, true, but still, that great black and yellow screen. neat.

[Florida_Geek]

15. YEA the software like the modem dialer

was not Tested. Or the Backup software from dot Mac goes into a hard loop backing up Konfabulator files to an iPod. Or the iPod updater tell you there is no iPod attached. Or the ....

[emulatorloo]

16. what you describe is not normal - there is something wrong w your laptop

I am sorry, but this is not a software problem per your definition of "bad software testing." Either the drive is corrupted or something else is going on. This is not normal behavior.

[Zech Marquis]

14. could be bad RAM like someone here said...

also check for any Software update files you might need.

Meanwhile, I;m also waiting to see what the iMac G5 will be like..I've seen so many wild rumors about a tablet Mac, iMac slimmed into a Cinema Display like body, components on the back...I'd love that or an eMac, but how will I carry one to Kyoto on the plane (without giving myself another hernia?) ?

There is an alternative--a refub iBook from the Apple Store. Hoefully some 14 inch models will sow up again, and this time I can grab one.

[Chovexani]

18. What's the scuttlebutt on new Powerbooks?

I am a lifelong Mac user that has been dreadfully out of the loop for way too long. My current Mac is a 333 iMac (Strawberry color...I just HAD to get the girliest one I could, LOL). I was thinking of replacing it with one of those nifty TiBooks, the 17" model to be specific, but I am paranoid about buying stuff right when it goes out of fashion ever since I just missed out on the iMacs with Firewire (no iPod for me *sniff*).

Any news on new Powerbooks? I dream of playing The Sims in my bean bag chair instead of being chained to my desk. :)

[Zech Marquis]

19. really good

the only issue so far are the batteries in the 15 inch models have been recalled for possible fire hazards. But beyond that, both the Powerbooks and iBooks are awesome. 14 inch iBooks can be custom built with Superdrives! And Airport Extreme is really, really GOOD.