I just had the chance to play around with iPhoto 6. The whole workflow – edit, crop, adjust, slide shows, etc. – seems to be noticeable faster and snappier than in the prior version. Especially scrolling through the whole photo library is in version 6 finally working as it should. I tested iPhoto on a photo library containing about 3.000 pictures which I could quickly browse through and do a “visual search” for images without getting the beach ball (on an iMac G5 2GHz). That’s a huge improvement! It never worked that way, iPhoto 5 is painfully slow in comparsion. Very helpful while scrolling is the overlay indicating the month (or the exact date if you have a limited number of pictures) when the pictures were taken.
The FlickrExport plugin is working in iPhoto 6 too. Even though you have to look for the export button now in another place (File/Export), but no problem at all. iPhoto 6 includes the possibility to subscribe to “photocasts” like the feeds for photostreams Flickr offers for instance. Pretty nice new feature!
Ever wondered which photo out of a few shots you would like to keep? The new feature “Compare” helps you to choose the best one, simple (it only displays 2 photos next to each other on the screen) but brilliant! There are a few other new things – like greeting cards, etc. – but I don’t care too much about them, I’ve never used books or something similar in iPhoto 5. More important to me is the performance improvement which would be the reason to buy iPhoto 6.
Would be, if it was not overprized. I think €79 is way too much for a simple (but excellent for amateur purposes) software like iPhoto. I don’t care if that price includes 4 more applications, I don’t use them:
- I don’t own a video camera, what’s the benefit of iMovie or iDVD?
- I don’t play any instrument, what should I record and arrange with GarageBand?
- I prefer WordPress to publish, TextWrangler to code and I don’t own a .mac subscription, iWeb has no value for me.
Why must Apple bundle those 5 apps? Is everyone using all of them?
I think the bundle would be a good idea if every single application would be sold seperatly too. What would be the problem to sell iPhoto for let’s say €30? It plays in the same league along with GraphicConverter which costs $30, that’s a reasonable price.
iPhoto came installed on my new iMac so I started using it. I had a quick look at GraphicConverter then but I sticked to iPhoto because I prefered the more convenient workflow. Knowing that I can’t expect improvements (speed!!) anymore I guess I’ll evaluate a second time if GraphicConverter fits my needs or just wait for Picasa for Mac.
Update:
An extensive review of iPhoto 6 you’ll find at Macworld: First Look: iPhoto 6.
Update #2:
Talking about pricing and bundling:
“Apple will no longer offer its Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, and DVD Studio Pro audio and video applications as standalone products, and come March will choose instead to sell them exclusively as part of the $1299 Final Cut Studio production suite.” (via Appleinsider)
It’s quite the same problem, just another dimension. You only want DVD Studio Pro because you’re fine with cutting in iMove? Sorry, but you must buy 3 more products and pay $1.299,- instead of $499,- to get it. I think semiprofessionals will reconsider purchasing the whole bundle, professionals in that business will probably laugh about the price.
Stefan from