Ant <
ANT...@zimage.com> wrote:
> Someone told me that Mac OS X 10.7.x and 10.8.x do not come with iLife
> like the older Mac OS X versions (e.g., 10.5.x).
As Larry said, iLife is not part of Mac OS X. They are separate
products.
New Macs are supplied with the version of Mac OS X _and_ the version of
iLife which were current at the time the Mac was assembled.
If you install a later major version of Mac OS X as an upgrade on an
existing Mac, you will still have the same version of iLife as you had
before. If you want a later major version of iLife for that Mac, you
need to buy it.
If you buy a new Mac which comes with a later version of OS X, it will
also have come with a later version of iLife preinstalled. If you use
Apple's Migration Assitant (or Setup Assistant during initial setup), it
can copy user accounts over to the new computer, which will include the
iPhoto library. The new version of iPhoto will update the older iPhoto's
library to work with the new version, and then you can use the new
version. (If the older iPhoto was very old you may need to download and
run a separate conversion tool.)
If you use Migration/Setup assistant to copy applications, it does NOT
copy an older version of iPhoto if it finds a newer version already
present.
In this case (based on other threads), you are actually talking about
moving from an older Mac to one which came with Lion preinstaled, which
is going to be upgraded to Mountain Lion. The new computer will already
have the current major versions of iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband
installed, but they might need to updated to the latest minor versions
(via App Store) to work properly in Mountain Lion.
The following is mainly for education purposes to cover the situation of
upgrading an older Mac to a later version of iLife.
Over the last several years, the iLife versions have been:
iLife '04 (January 2004)
iLife '05 (January 2005)
iLife '06 (January 2006)
iLife '08 (August 2007)
iLife '09 (January 2009)
iLife '11 (October 2010)
If your client has a Mac that came with Mac OS X 10.5 preinstalled, then
it probably has iLife '08, but might have iLife '09 if it was bought far
enough into 2009. (Mac OS X 10.5 was the current version from October
2007 to August 2009.)
iLife was sold as a retail product on DVD until about mid 2011. Apple
also started selling the iLife '11 versions of iPhoto, iMovie and
Garageband as individual products via the App Store from early 2011.
The DVD edition of iLife '11 has been discontinued but you might still
be able to find it via sources such as Amazon or eBay.
There are some differences between the DVD and App Store editions:
- The iLife '11 DVD includes iDVD and iWeb in addition to iPhoto, iMovie
and Garageband. (iDVD wasn't updated after iLife '08, so your client
will already have the current version. iWeb was updated in iLife '09, so
your client might have iWeb 2.x and the only way to get iWeb 3.x is via
the iLife '09 or iLife '11 retail DVD.)
- The DVD edition was sold as single licence and family pack variants.
You are only allowed to install the single licence edition on one
computer. The family pack is allowed to be installed on up to five
computers in one household. The App Store editions of iPhoto, iMovie and
Garageband can be installed for personal use on an unlimited number of
Macs you own or control.
- Minor updates for the DVD edition are delivered via Software Update
(which are delivered through App Store in Mountain Lion, but using a
separate mechanism) or can be manually downloaded from
http://support.apple.com/downloads. Minor updates for the App Store
editions of iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband are delivered via App Store.
- Assuming you were able to buy the DVD edition at its original retail
price, the App Store editions work out cheaper, especially if you want
to install them on multiple computers, or you only want some of the
applications, or you are outside the US and the DVD was ridiculously
overpriced due to a bad exchange rate when it was released (in early
2011).
- The DVD edition supports older OS versions: iLife '11 will work on
Snow Leopard if installed from DVD, but the App Store editions of iPhoto
and iMovie currently require Lion (10.7.5 or 10.7.4 respecitvely) or
later.
> I did not know this! Since my client uses iPhoto that came preinstalled on
> his old 2008 MacBook Pro's Mac OS X 10.5.x (10.5.8 right now), can he use
> the old one from 10.5.8?
Assuming you were talking about upgrading that computer to Mountain
Lion, the actual question is whether iPhoto '08 or iPhoto '09 will work
on Mountain Lion. You can check which version of iPhoto your client has
by using the About iPhoto command in the iPhoto menu (while it is
running).
Note that the prominently displayed name ("iPhoto '08" or "iPhoto '09")
is the name of the product (referencing the iLife edition it came with),
but the application version number of the application (in smaller print)
will be 7 point something for iPhoto '08, or 8 point something for
iPhoto '09.
From brief observations of them running on other people's computers, I'd
say those versions of iPhoto seem to work OK, but I haven't used them
extensively. Looking at <
http://roaringapps.com/apps:table> for iPhoto,
its page is <
http://roaringapps.com/app:4>. I see there is a comment
from someone that iPhoto 8.x ("iPhoto '09") hangs on Mountain Lion if
you try to view events containing thousands of photos, but otherwise
seems to be OK. No comments on iPhoto 7.x ("iPhoto '08") running on
Mountain Lion.
There have been several updates to iPhoto which take advantage of new
features in Lion and Mountain Lion, and those updates are only available
if you have iPhoto 9.x ("iPhoto '11").
The easiest and cheapest way to get iPhoto 9.x for an older Mac is to
buy it from the App Store. You can also go there to see sample screen
shots before buying, and read the reviews.
> Or will he need a third party replacement (needs to import/copy the old
> image files) or buy a new iPhoto version for his photo(graph)s? I recalled
> he did not like iPhoto and wonder if the new one is any better.
iPhoto 9.x had a major user interface redesign which some people don't
like. I'm sure a Google search will turn up details. I'm using it and am
happy with it, though I wouldn't call myself a heavy user.
--
David Empson
dem...@actrix.gen.nz