iMovie '08 is not a replacement for iMovie HD '06. The iLife '08 installation leaves iMovie HD '06 in place. (It replaces the other applications.) If David checks his Applications folder, he should find a folder, "Old iMovie," or something like that, with iMovie HD '06 intact. For those who bought iLife '08 (and those who will get it on new Macs) and who do not have iMovie HD '06, Apple has provided iMovie HD '06 free on its website.

His article also says that iMovie '08 is not any easier to use than iMovie HD '06. That's very strange coming from the author of the "Missing Manual" series. He produces a video "blog" every week or so, using iMovie HD. Most people don't have his expertise. Just watch the demo by Jobs to see how easy and fast it is.

As for the timeline, I suspect that timelines are confusing for a lot of people. (iPhoto doesn't have a timeline for slide shows, either.) It certainly was for me when I made my first video in iMovie '05. Maybe I'm just too new to computers (1984) and Macs (1992).

If one wants to edit the audio in an iMovie '08, one can drop the entire movie into a Garageband project and edit away.

If you read the article, you'd know Pogue addresses the maintained copy of iMovie 06.

His point remains valid. iMovie 08 may be a good program for some tasks, but it is NO replacement for iMovie 06.

(and saying that the timeline is confusing for some people is disingenous at best because it implies that in previous iterations of iMovie, users had to use the timeline. You don't. It's one of two optional views)

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Engine Joe wrote:
If you read the article, you'd know Pogue addresses the maintained copy of iMovie 06.

His point remains valid. iMovie 08 may be a good program for some tasks, but it is NO replacement for iMovie 06.

(and saying that the timeline is confusing for some people is disingenous at best because it implies that in previous iterations of iMovie, users had to use the timeline. You don't. It's one of two optional views)

No, he did not mention that iMovie'06 is left intact. Here's what he wrote:

"That’s why, with what I imagine is a certain degree of sheepishness, the company is offering a free download of the previous iMovie version to anyone who has iMovie ‘08."

There's no mention that the installer leaves iMovie '06 in place. It's not an afterthought, at all. Apple is giving users options.

Good point about the optional view in iMovie '06.

In other ways, I think that Pogue may miss the point a bit. Jobs explained the genesis of iMovie '08--an Apple engineer was frustrated that it took so long to make a simple video from a vacation, so he designed something entirely new, aimed at the occasional user, not the power user who wants Final Cut Lite. It seems much easier to pick out the bits you want than in previous versions, for example, and it's apparently very fast. (I can't tell, as iMovie '08 won't run on my iMac G4. I'm not up in arms about that, however--there's no reason that it should be crippled to run on 3+-year-old Macs.)

This is not the first time that Apple has come out with a simpler product, less "capable" (in some sense) than its predecessor in the interest of simplicity and to meet the needs of a wider (and different) audience. Anyone recall the iPod Mini, Nano, and Shuffle? Ah, but, of course, those just tanked. No one ever bought one, did they? Everyone had to have the most capable iPod, after all.

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gslusher wrote:
This is not the first time that Apple has come out with a simpler product, less "capable" (in some sense) than its predecessor in the interest of simplicity and to meet the needs of a wider (and different) audience. Anyone recall the iPod Mini, Nano, and Shuffle? Ah, but, of course, those just tanked. No one ever bought one, did they? Everyone had to have the most capable iPod, after all.

Sarcasm aside, that's really not a valid comparison. Did Apple discontinue the previous iPods and claim that the new, less-capable versions were better, and all we were going to get? Of course not; this was a choice, and the full iPod continued to be improved upon. If Apple has chosen to release the new version as "iMove Express" or something, while continuing to develop the original iMove, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I have to say, even on my classmate's MacBook Pro and the one time I tried it on a G5 iMovie was dog-slow, I was kinda like "huh, I know it can do realtime effects in FCP but it can't handle this?". So if the main purpose was to reduce the number of relatively unnecessary options and increase the speed of its operation I'm all for it. Combine that with iMovie 06 being easily available and it seems a non-issue to me as well.

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gslusher wrote:
iMovie '08 is not a replacement for iMovie HD '06. The iLife '08 installation leaves iMovie HD '06 in place.

Right. Using an abandoned program with no future updates for new video formats or ensured-compatibility with future OSes will be lots of fun.

This is fine for a year or two, but you can't tell me you expect someone to keeping using iMvoie 06 for the next decade. This is a real brush-off answer that doesn't help anyone.

What I find odd is that the old iMovie 06 opened up in assemble mode by default. You had to manually switch it over to timeline mode. So why eliminate the timeline for simplicity? It was never there unless the user turned it on!

So why remove it? Sending more people to Final Cut Express is the only answer I find plausible.

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gslusher wrote:
No, he did not mention that iMovie'06 is left intact.

Well, it *isn't* "left intact" if you don't already own iLife '06. And yes, there are millions of computers that can run iLife '08 that did not come with iLife '06.

We're all still waiting for a legitimate example of Apple (or anyone else) removing so much functionality from one version to the next.

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Small White Car wrote:

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gslusher wrote:
iMovie '08 is not a replacement for iMovie HD '06. The iLife '08 installation leaves iMovie HD '06 in place.

Right. Using an abandoned program with no future updates for new video formats or ensured-compatibility with future OSes will be lots of fun.

This is fine for a year or two, but you can't tell me you expect someone to keeping using iMvoie 06 for the next decade. This is a real brush-off answer that doesn't help anyone.

What I find odd is that the old iMovie 06 opened up in assemble mode by default. You had to manually switch it over to timeline mode. So why eliminate the timeline for simplicity? It was never there unless the user turned it on!

So why remove it? Sending more people to Final Cut Express is the only answer I find plausible.

Video formats: I guess that you mean the formats used by the cameras. (Internally, iMovie '06 uses only one format, DV stream.) Does iMovie '06 import from DVD or hard drive camcorders? I don't have one, so I can't tell--my newer camcorder is a Canon Optura 50, which uses mini DV tapes.

iMovie '08 apparently will import from a wider range of camcorders, including AVCHD, the format used by the newest hard-drive HD camcorders. If you want to use those clips in iMovie '06, you could import them with iMovie '08, then export them as needed.

Other formats (MPEG2, MPEG4, etc) are imported into iMovie '06 via QuickTime, so, I guess, any format that QuickTime can handle could be imported into iMovie '06. New codecs and formats would be added to QuickTime, not iMovie, just as now.

OS compatibility: who says that iMovie '06 won't be compatible with the Mac OS for quite a while? Carbon programs like AppleWorks will still run in Leopard.

Who says that Apple won't improve iMovie '08 in the future, maybe in the next year or two, building on the new baseline? (Anyone remember the first iMovie for OS 9? Compare that to iMovie '06.) Meanwhile, you have iMovie '06 for more "advanced" users. Give them time.

"The next decade"? I assume that's a bit of hyperbole. OS X isn't 10 years old. Go back 10 years and the first G3 Mac had not yet come out (that was November, 1997) and OS 8 had just been released (July, 1997). Are you still using OS 7.6.1 applications?

Default view: my copy of iMovie opens in the timeline view or the assemble view when I create a new project, depending upon what view was used when I last quit the application. I can't say what the original view was for the first project.

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Anonymous wrote:

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gslusher wrote:
No, he did not mention that iMovie'06 is left intact.

Well, it *isn't* "left intact" if you don't already own iLife '06. And yes, there are millions of computers that can run iLife '08 that did not come with iLife '06.

We're all still waiting for a legitimate example of Apple (or anyone else) removing so much functionality from one version to the next.

If you have iLife '08, you can download iMovie HD '06 FREE, as stated in the Pogue article or several posts here.

Be careful, though: a lot of those "millions of computers" that didn't come with iLife '06 can't run iMovie '08, period.

"iMovie requires a Mac with an Intel processor, a Power Mac G5 (dual 2.0GHz or faster), or an iMac G5 (1.9GHz or faster). "

Jobs made it clear that iMovie '08 is a completely new application, not a "version" of the older application. It just has a similar name.

As for examples of removing functionality for simplicity, Final Cut Express, Photoshop Elements, and Microsoft Write come to mind. Each was a simplified version of another application, albeit with a different name.

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gslusher wrote:

Are you still using OS 7.6.1 applications?

Well that's pretty much my point.

Imagine someone who didn't like OS 8 for some reason. The advice you give (keep using iMovie 06) is pretty much the same as telling that person to "just keep using OS 7.6.1!"

In both cases I don't consider that advice to be very useful. Do you?

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Small White Car wrote:

Right. Using an abandoned program with no future updates for new video formats or ensured-compatibility with future OSes will be lots of fun.

This is fine for a year or two, but you can't tell me you expect someone to keeping using iMvoie 06 for the next decade. This is a real brush-off answer that doesn't help anyone.

An excellent point, because of course Apple is finished with this new version of iMovie and won't be working on it at all in the next "year or two," and in fact even in 2016 they'll still be expecting people to use iMovie '08.

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Small White Car wrote:

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gslusher wrote:

Are you still using OS 7.6.1 applications?

Well that's pretty much my point.

Imagine someone who didn't like OS 8 for some reason. The advice you give (keep using iMovie 06) is pretty much the same as telling that person to "just keep using OS 7.6.1!"

In both cases I don't consider that advice to be very useful. Do you?

Why not? If 7.6.1 did what they wanted and needed to do, they could keep using it. I still use 10.3.9 on an iMac G4. I miss out on some applications, but, so far, there's not been much real need to upgrade. I will when I get a new Mac, of course.

This is another gaffe by Apple. Spin it any way you want and it's still a gaffe. It doesn't matter how many fanboys get defensive and try to protect Steve-0 - it's a gaffe if it's not popular and this move is not popular. Whilst any company can be expected to make mistakes from time to time, this is an engineering matter and no engineer worth a tenth of his salary would ever go along with something so stupid as what Apple have done.

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Fairly wrote:
This is another gaffe by Apple. Spin it any way you want and it's still a gaffe. It doesn't matter how many fanboys get defensive and try to protect Steve-0 - it's a gaffe if it's not popular and this move is not popular. Whilst any company can be expected to make mistakes from time to time, this is an engineering matter and no engineer worth a tenth of his salary would ever go along with something so stupid as what Apple have done.

First, as Jobs said, it was an Apple engineer who came up with the idea for iMovie '08 because he was frustrated that it took so long to make a simple movie from his vacation.

Second, it's not an engineering matter. It's about meeting the needs of the customer.

We don't know how popular it will be. The gripes and complaints seem to be coming from experienced users of iMovie '06. That's a small group, I suspect. Remember that iLife '08 will come with all new Macs. Many people new to the Mac may find it quite easy to use and really like it.

When Pages came out, experienced Word users said that it was a piece of trash, never be useful for anything because it didn't do x, y, or z. New users, on the other hand, seem to like it because it's easy to use, without the steep learning curve that Word requires.

Another example would be iPhoto. iPhoto doesn't do anything that Photoshop and Bridge can't do--and Photoshop can do a lot that iPhoto can't. However, Photoshop--even Photoshop Elements--is intimidating and not easy to learn. iPhoto, on the other hand, is easy. I see the new iMovie as more like iPhoto, in that regard. It expands the number of people who will actually make videos. They should count, too.

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Fairly wrote:
This is another gaffe by Apple. Spin it any way you want and it's still a gaffe.

RIght. Too bad you're sitting here bitching at what Apple should or shouldn't do while this loser of a Jobs is running the company making all these errors. If only he had your perception as to what the right approach is!

If you stop to think for a minute you might consider that Apple is fine-tuning their product line. They have an offer for the consumer level (iMovie) and one for more advanced users (Final Cut). The same is true when you look at the other parts of the package (iPhoto vs. Aperture, for instance). From a marketing point of view, this is much cleaner. And yes, making things simpler often implies removing features.

Then think about the cost of iMovie: as part of iLife, it's free with a new Mac along with some other pretty cool apps, or very affordable if you need to buy it. If you know a better deal anywhere else, by all means go for it.

I am not an apologist for Apple, and I don't approve of everything they do, but I don't believe they are making mistakes whenever I happen to disagree with their actions. Looking at how well they are doing, it's even possible that the mistakes I am so sure they are making are no mistakes at all. All in all, I'd have to say that they are doing better than "fairly" well, wouldn't you agree?

iM 08 is crap. Wait for the updates to fix it? Are you kidding? What kind of advice is that? You have no idea where this is headed, after they screwed this pooch so badly. Shame on you, Apple. Bad call.

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Anonymous wrote:
iM 08 is crap. Wait for the updates to fix it? Are you kidding? What kind of advice is that? You have no idea where this is headed, after they screwed this pooch so badly. Shame on you, Apple. Bad call.

Have you used it?

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gslusher wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:
Well, it *isn't* "left intact" if you don't already own iLife '06. And yes, there are millions of computers that can run iLife '08 that did not come with iLife '06.

We're all still waiting for a legitimate example of Apple (or anyone else) removing so much functionality from one version to the next.

If you have iLife '08, you can download iMovie HD '06 FREE, as stated in the Pogue article or several posts here.

I think you're losing track of your own argument. YOU were the one complaining that Pogue said it was available for free download, but didn't say it was "left intact" on the hard drive. He obviously knew that wouldn't apply to everyone, as I pointed out.

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Be careful, though: a lot of those "millions of computers" that didn't come with iLife '06 can't run iMovie '08, period.

"iMovie requires a Mac with an Intel processor, a Power Mac G5 (dual 2.0GHz or faster), or an iMac G5 (1.9GHz or faster). "

...which doesn't do anything to change my point. Millions of systems that meet those requirements are in use.

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Jobs made it clear that iMovie '08 is a completely new application, not a "version" of the older application. It just has a similar name.

Exactly, he said they are "replacing" (his exact word) iMovie, contrary to your statement above that "iMovie '08 is not a replacement for iMovie HD '06." Silly us for thinking that "iMovie '08" should be somehow more advanced and feature-rich that "iMovie '06."

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As for examples of removing functionality for simplicity, Final Cut Express, Photoshop Elements, and Microsoft Write come to mind. Each was a simplified version of another application, albeit with a different name.

Each was a new product with a new name, new (lower) price, and new version number that was sold alongside the original, more advanced product. Can you imagine if they had released Final Cut Express 1.0 as "Final Cut Pro 3.0"?

Aside from whether gslusher's opinion is valid or not, were people who are upset about these changes actually happy with iMovie 06 performance? I haven't tried it yet because I don't have a good enough machine, but even on a better machine 06 was bad performance-wise. I imagine SJ found that aspect of it somewhat inconsistent with their other offerings, FCP and FCE work better even on my old G4 than iMovie ever did.

Also, as to taking a decent product and completely wrecking its UI/etc under the guise of an upgrade, this happens with software all the time. Vista is probably the most egregious example recently, and MS the worst culprit in general (was it Word 5 that was complete garbage?), but plenty of people do it. Still sucks, but Apple's hardly unique.

Word 6. Complete. Utter. Garbage.

Word 5 was arguably the best version of Word.

blah blah blah...lots _IS_ missing from iMovie 08...Didn't Steve say it was "all new, tossed out the old one and started again" ... ( like it was sooooo stable...)

I don't think I can even slow down a clip.

However, it does a much..._MUCH_... better job during the logging phase of a project. Like, better than any app before...Like it's pretty darn cool.

I am not too sure if you have spent 40 hours sitting in front of your 3 hours of raw trying to find 9 good minutes. Essentially, old iMovie had no tricks to help you. But this is where new Imovie 08 shines...like no other! Skimming, keywords (have you seen how easy it is to blast through your footage and tag everything with keyword?) ... dump bad scenes ... highlight favs for later... it really matched the creative side of the editing process much more directly than the old iMovie. An entire generation better, dare I say.

I expect we'll see the return of the timeline in future releases. And more transitions and effects. I believe the original iMovie had no timeline as well...Don't blast me too hard if I am wrong.

Still ambivalent, though, I must say...

I suppose one way of looking at it is that at least they didn't try to staple these new features onto the old iMovie and wind up some some hideously bloated frankenprogram. That happens all too often.

Still, it seems odd for the successor to be inferior in such a way. If it's not meant as the true successor, it shouldn't be called iMovie. That's just going to confuse people. If it is meant as the succussor, it seems like they should've kept it under wraps a bit longer until they brought it up to par in these areas.

It sounds to me like they could have made this a separate app with iMovie integration. But then, I've never used any version of iMovie all that much, so I'm not in a good position to say.

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Guest wrote:
blah blah blah...lots _IS_ missing from iMovie 08...Didn't Steve say it was "all new, tossed out the old one and started again" ... ( like it was sooooo stable...)

I expect we'll see the return of the timeline in future releases. And more transitions and effects. I believe the original iMovie had no timeline as well...Don't blast me too hard if I am wrong.

Still ambivalent, though, I must say...

You may well be right on the upgrade features. I missed the timeline until I found that it was there in 06 where it had been stored safely. On the other hand, I made an iMovie slideshow in a fraction of the time it took me to do in previous versions. I do miss not being able to cut to the beat when I have a musical soundtrack in mind, though.

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Intruder wrote:
Word 6. Complete. Utter. Garbage.

Word 5 was arguably the best version of Word.

Yeah, thats right, couldn't remember if it was 6 or 5. Remember Word and Excel 5 being like 22 discs or something between them, but once you got them installed it was good

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Intruder wrote:
Word 6. Complete. Utter. Garbage.

Word 5 was arguably the best version of Word.

Hear, hear! MSW5.1 was the last Microsoft program that I did not continually need to swear at to stay sane... I used it until OSX made it obsolete. It had everything useful right there on the top level of the interface, it had EGO (not OLE) and it had the fastest and best system-wide search engine in any program.

On topic: I believe the idea might be that the new iMovie will be made more and more capable over the next two or three iLife iterations until iMovie 06 becomes obsolete.

PS: there is also the precedent of Pages, which is very much a stripped down -It's not pretending to be a complete replacement for Word 2004.

Apple currently ships four applications that cover the same basic requirement: iMovie 08 & 06, Final Cut Pro & Express. iMovie '06 now comes free with '08. The time to criticise is when iMovie '06 disappears with no balancing updates to shipping applications, not when Apple introduces an innovative iMovie '08, that does new things that weren't possible before.

I haven't seen or used iMovie8 yet (that new computer will arrive with the new OS version, in October); just read about it. But I teach iMovie6 in our user group, so am pretty familiar with it and previous versions. I agree with the person who pointed out that one does not ordinarily see a radically stripped down version of a program given the same name as its earlier cousin, much less a number that suggests an upgrade of the older (whether the upgrade is better or not is not the issue, you Word5 vs. Word6 folks).
From what I can tell, iMovie8 strips out many features from iMovie6, but includes some new stuff that users have found useful and helpful. I would guess that it is probably possible to take one's video clips into 8, do the good stuff there with them, and then import the results into 6 to polish the results with the more complex parts of 6. Sort of like you can use Keynote to create great title pages much easier than using 6 for the same purpose, or use 6 to do better slide shows than iPhoto can. Hopefully, with a little creativity and experimentation, we can get the best of all worlds without buying into FCP.

The old iMovie is the best version they have ever had, the new iMovie does not even slow-mo!

Yes, I have and the employees in the store even recommended that I not get the mac if I want good editing software.

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Anonymous wrote:
Yes, I have and the employees in the store even recommended that I not get the mac if I want good editing software.

yeah, right.