Apple Announces iLife ’04

Apple today announced iLife’04, the next generation of Apple’s award-winning suite of digital lifestyleapplications. iLife ’04 features major new versions of iPhoto, iMovie andiDVD and introduces GarageBand, a revolutionary new music application thatturns a Mac into a professional-quality musical instrument and recordingstudio for musicians and aspiring musicians alike. iLife ’04 also featuresthe recently-released iTunes 4.2, the world’s best digital music jukeboxsoftware. iLife ’04 leads the industry in allowing consumers to easilyorganise their photos, manage their music collection, create movies, authorDVDs and now create music.

“With iLife ’04, Apple is taking another leap far ahead of its PCcompetitors in offering the most innovative software for organising andcreating digital music, photos and movies”, said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And now GarageBand does for music creation what iMovie did for video and iPhoto did for photos — makes the creative process easy and affordable for everyone. Over half of US households have at least one member whocurrently plays a musical instrument, so we think GarageBand is going tofind a very receptive audience”.

GarageBand turns the Mac into a complete recording studio, allowing bothnovice and seasoned musicians alike to easily play, record and createamazing music using a remarkably simple interface. With GarageBand, recordedperformances, digital audio and looping tracks can easily be arranged andedited like building blocks to create a song. GarageBand comes with morethan 50 software instruments, including a premium-quality grand piano, thatcan be played and recorded with any USB or MIDI music keyboard. Over 1,000professionally pre-recorded audio loops can be combined to make completesongs or backing tracks. Vocals and live instruments such as guitars can berecorded digitally via microphone or analogue input. All these tracks can beedited and mixed together with over 200 pro-quality effects presets,including pro-quality effects such as reverb and echo, and the built-inexpertise of professional recording engineers. With GarageBand’s advancedmodelling technology, guitar players have access to some of the most reveredvintage amplifier sounds with six guitar amps, including clean jazz, arenarock and Indie. GarageBand can also export completed songs toiTunes for burning to CD, encoding in MP3 or high quality AAC, transfer toiPod or for use in the other iLife applications.

iPhoto 4 now lets users scroll through and resize up to 25,000 photos inseconds to find exactly the photo they’re looking for. New time-based photoorganisation gives users even easier access to their photos, and SmartAlbums automatically organises photos based on date, keyword or the user’sown rating. New slideshows include cinematic transitions and controls forrotating, rating and deleting photos on the fly. With Rendezvous photosharing, photos can easily be shared between computers across home networks.

iMovie 4 features editing directly in the timeline to make movie creationeasier and faster. Users can select and edit multiple clips simultaneouslyto modify and render clips faster and more efficiently. With graphical audiowaveforms and live audio scrubbing, users can find specific edit points inaudio tracks, and alignment guides make it easy to precisely sync video andaudio. Live video can be imported directly from an iSight camera to theclips panel. iMovie 4 also makes it simple to share movies over the Internetvia email or web with a .Mac HomePage, and users can take movies with themwhen they travel with a compatible Bluetooth mobile phone or PDA.

iDVD 4 includes 20 new Hollywood-style themes, many with intro movies andsub-menus, that can be personalised with music, photos and movies for trulyoriginal DVDs. Movies from iMovie, photos from iPhoto and music from iTunesor GarageBand can be added directly to a DVD via the media browser, andenhanced photo slideshows can include cinematic transitions and iTunesplaylists. The DVD Map provides an overview of entire DVD projects, andprofessional-quality encoding can fit over two hours of video on a singleDVD.

iLife ’04 also includes the latest version of iTunes, the world’s bestdigital music jukebox software. iTunes allows users to import music fromCDs, organise and mix the music in their digital music libraries into customplaylists, burn custom CDs or take their entire music collection with themon their iPod. iTunes digital music jukebox software and market-leading iPodportable digital music player provide a complete solution for music fans tomanage and listen to their digital music collections anywhere.

Pricing & Availability:

iLife ’04 will be available on January 16th for a suggested selling price of£39 (inc VAT) through the Apple Store andApple Authorised Resellers. The iLife ’04 applications will also be included with all new Macs. An iLife Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchase a new Mac on or after January 6 that does not include iLife ’04. The iLife Up-To-Date package is available for a shipping andhandling fee of £15 (inc VAT). iTunes version 4.2 is currently available as a free download at www.apple.com/ie/itunes.

iLife requires Mac OS X v10.2.6 or later, QuickTime 6.4 or later, aMacintosh computer with PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor, 256MB or morephysical RAM and a 1024x768 or larger display. A 600MHz G3 processor orfaster is required for GarageBand and a G4 or G5 processor is required forGarageBand software instruments. An Apple SuperDrive or 733MHz G4 processoris required for iDVD and a SuperDrive is required to burn DVDs.

 

 

Press Contacts:
Apple UK and Ireland Public Relations
Email: media.uk@apple.com
Phone: +44 (0)20 8218 1440