“Are you envious of Mac users who get to play with cool tools? Especially the suite of tools called iLife ’05? iLife is a collection of tools that make managing your digital assets, images, and audio and video not only fun but cool,” Matthew David writes for Informit.com.
The iLife suite includes all these products:
• iTunes: Manages your music collection; you can also buy new music at the iTunes Store
• iPhoto: Allows you to easily manage all your digital photographs and images
• iMovie: Enables you to create nonlinear digital movies quickly and easily
• iDVD: Allows you to create professional-level quality DVDs with assets from iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie
• Garage Band: Lets you record, mix, and manage up to four tracks of music
David writes, “The whole suite is available only for the Mac at the incredibly reasonable price of $79 (or free if you buy a Mac Mini). The suite of tools works incredibly well together. But you run Windows XP! Apple does not make a Windows version of iLife. What can you do? Fortunately, not only can you replicate what the Apple folks have but you might be able to one-up them on the functionality of some products, and others are just downright cheaper.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: David attempts to find iLife equivalents for Windows (for iTunes, he recommends Apple’s iTunes for Windows, of course; for iPhoto, he picks PhotoShop Album or Picasa; for iMovie HD, he picks Microsoft’s Movie Maker while mentioning that, “You can’t create high definition video, as iMovie ’05 can, and you are restricted to only one video and one audio layer” and; for iDVD, he picks Adobe’s $99 Premier Elements which is $20 more than Apple entire iLife suite and; for GarageBand, he writes, “Garage Band is the one tool that is hard to replicate directly on the Windows platform because the product is so unique” and ends up mentioning Audacity.
David’s “solutions” are not tightly integrated like Apple’s iLife applications, where you can seamlessly share media between all of the iLife applications. In fact, they’re not integrated at all. Somehow, David ends up concluding, “There is no need to be bummed or envious of the Mac crowd. With a little creativity, and even a frugal budget, you can follow my lead and easily emulate iLife ’05 on the Windows platform.”
David’s own piece clearly shows that one cannot “emulate iLife ’05 on Windows.” You just can’t. So, David’s article end up being an exercise in contradiction and futility. Following his suggestions will produce poor results compared to iLife; pretty much the same concept as using Windows to emulate the Mac OS. There’s the real thing and then there’s a hodgepodge trying and failing to be something from Apple. It’s fruitless (get it?).
Stop the madness! Windows users who want to do everything that iLife ’05 can do would be much better off adding a Mac mini (starts at $499) to their setup – Apple’s iLife is included, so by saving $79 users are already looking at a Mac OS X Tiger computer that starts at $420 and also comes with Spotlight, Safari, Mail, Dashboard, and on and on and on.
More info:
Apple’s Mac mini
Apple iLife ’05
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Mike A wrote:
Yeah right, to use Idvd you need an imac mini with a dvd writer. That would be $699 instead of the 420 mentioned. Of course that excludes mouse/keys/monitor as ussual.
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I have had a mini, its slow the text quality on screen is horrible. Dashboard is not innovative, its a direct copy of the, now free, konfabulator.
<<You probably opted for the standard 256mb of RAM. I’m sure you got plenty of advice that you should upgrade the RAM to 512 mb. As to the text quality…well there you’ve lost what ever credibility you might have had. The text quality on any Mac I’ve tried is much better than on any Windows machine I’ve seen (and used). As has been pointed out, Konfabulator is a resource hog compared to Dashboard. It’s also free on the Mac.>>
Allow me to rant, as i speak for experience with both computers.
<<You’re allowed to rant. But there are people with similar experience who believe you’re merely trolling.>>
-Picassa is way more responsive than Iphoto
<<Maybe. It looks like a good program. They’re thinking of releasing in on the Mac too…then we’ll see it shine.>>
-Itunes is horrible compared to f.e. Winamp
<<Actually the reverse. I speak from experience too.>>
-Magix makes better music software than garageband is
<<You shouldn’t end a sentence with a verb. Anyway, Magix looks like it makes great products. When they come out with a Mac version then maybe we can have an intelligent dialog.>>
-Having Safari is an negative point not a positive one
<<No, having IE is the negative point. If you don’t like Safari there are plenty of other browers (many free) to choose from. Even Windows fanboys eschew IE and go for Firefox.>>
Never mind the doctors bill you will get from using the apple mouse, and the weird keyboard shortcuts you seem to have to use for just about anything.
<<Oh dear, you mean you’re forced to use an Apple mouse? You prefer Windows keyboard shortcuts? I guess there is no accounting for taste (or in your case tastelessness). As to doctors…I know plenty of Windows users with Windows Mice and Carpal tunnel syndrome. I guess any mouse can be bad for you.>>
And don’t forget glasses because you will have to squint your eyes due to the horrible text quality that all apple’s have (not just the mini).
<<This sentence is, of course, nonsense and brands you as a troll…pure and simple.>>
This guy sounds like he is trying to convince himself more than his audience.
Poor guy, painting himself into a corner, he is. After trying for so long and so hard to convince himself that he made the right choice to stay on winblows, it will be very difficult for him to publicly admit that, yes, he still IS envious of Mac Users and is going to buy a Mac.
This guy might be able to get himself off mentally masturbating to a poor windoze mismash imitation of the real thing but we all know and HE knows, it still isn’t the same as really getting laid.
mike a. You are sooooo comical, trolling over here on a Mac site.
Plus you are delusional. Change your nappies and go back to mommy.
Plus you tell big fibs so you’re going to be spanked.
Disregaring the trolling / nappies and other insults that are so typical of the mac-clan response to anything that resembles another opinion that they have, i still would like to comment on babcocks’s post:
Beside from the fact that you are also guilty of the above : “well there you’ve lost what ever credibility you might have had” i would still like to make a comment on that without insulting, what seems to be the norm here :
The text quality on the apple is objectivly worse than windows cleartype. Have a look at this article : http://www.themacobserver.com/columns/devilsadvocate/2003/20030523.shtml
There you can see the difference between the two (cleartype and apple’s squinttype)
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Let me tell you that the minimac’s text + the really horribly slow safari browser was my number 1 and 2 reason to sell it again. O yeah i have a TFT screen maybe apple looks better on a crt.
To end on a positive note : i would buy an Apple straight away if they :
– Use cleartype and intel (ok next year intel)
– Would have more games (no a console is not comparable to pc games interactiveness)
– Replace safari and use a real filebrowser
And ohh yes let me do this : For people that now bring out the insults -> grow up and try to be objective, buy an pc with xpsp2 and give it a few months just like i did with apple.
Then you can select what you like.
For the others, yeah right keep thinking you can read this correctly on an apple
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” /> And keep comparing osx to windows 3.1. Great going on that g4-433 powerhorse :p
My PC-based list would include:
Music/DVD burning, photo management/touchup: Media Center 2005 OS (free with the right PC)
Music Looping: Acid Express (Free, 8 tracks)
For something like iMovie I like the NeroVision 3.x component in the Nero 6.6 Ultra Suite (which also includes a waveform editor, CD/DVD burning tools, virtual drive emulator, and a cover design utility, etc., etc.). Total cost of the suite (not including PC and OS): $69.
For less money than the Apple package overall, The PC software suite has vastly greater functionality. And yes, all of the file formats work together seamlessly on the PC, too. And I think NeroVision’s interface is great. Better than iMovie’s, for my taste. Flame me if you like, but I like the Media Center OS a lot.
Don’t forget Audacity is also available for Mac OS X and is free.
It’s a cool program, but the comparison to Garage Band is funny.
Mike, the following link proves only that people differ on their perception of what looks best. (read the many comments)
>The text quality on the apple is objectivly(sic) worse than windows cleartype. Have a look at this article : http://www.themacobserver.com/columns/devilsadvocate/2003/20030523.shtml>
Not a true statement.
“Mike A” wrote “to use iDvd you need an imac mini with a dvd writer”
Wrong. First it is called a Mac mini. There is no such product as an “imac” mini.
Second you can create a dvd image and save it on a Mac without a superdrive. You only need a DVD burner if you want to burn the dvd.
From: Mike A
“Replace safari and use a real filebrowser”
Er, Safari is a web browser, file browsing in OS X is done in the finder. Is it Finder you don’t like or Safari?
Just Curious
P.S.
Comparing iTunes to Winamp was a joke, right?
@ron :
Sorry about the imac mini that was a typo. I know about the dvd image file possibility. However this is not a valid proposition for an mac mini owner, considering that it would be the only mac. And an external dvd drive is not much cheaper than the $100 apple asks for their internal one.
@Hari
It’s both i don’t like. Safari because it’s slow and not very compatible (yes i know most websites dont adhere to standards but at least they work on both IE and Firefox). The finder is just painfull to use compared to the XP equivalent.
Itunes-winamp, that’s because i am used to winamp probably. Itunes is not esp. good or bad, it depends on taste. As i don’t have an Ipod i can use whatever i like for mp3’s.
All this is not saying apple is bad, it isn’t it’s just not as great as the hype would like us to think it is.
(sorry for any english mistakes, its not my 1st language)
I’m with Mike all the way.
There is way too much hype on the “interoperability” of the iLife suite and the OS for that matter.
While my 2 mac mini’s do fine for most tasks, they don’t compare at all to XP for handling numerous filetypes in many different types of apps.
iTunes is one of the best for music-handling, yet can still not come up with an effective way of managing dupes apart from showing them. Take a look at all the scripts that have been written just for this purpose and you’ll see what I mean – and some work and some don’t.
In the end these very apps frustrate me when I am attempting to combine photos, movies and music for work purposes. Most of the time I inevitably end up having to go to my XP machine to finish things off or start again.
The problems: From kernel panics to totally unpredictable program shutdowns while in creation-mode, this OS,and iLife for that matter,(and I’m only referring to my experience), is not as stable or as “integrated” as some would lead you to believe.
In addition Windows Explorer is far more intuitive and user-friendly than Finder.
While XP doesn’t even come close, and I mean close at all, to touching the Mac OS for overall look and feel, Tiger is still not quite there IMHO.
However, with all kinds of new users trying it out, and the potential to seriously take market share from MS, it can only get better – and I’m sure it will.
So I’m a guy that has 2 mac mini’s, and I would never question my purchase as I love them, just wish they did some things better.
And by the way – “ditto” on Safari – it’s now better than it was, but it needs to get more compatible yet.