iPhoto ’08

We just received iLife ‘08 and I managed to be the first to install/ explore it.

In the first few minutes of exploring iPhoto I learned a lot, and here’s what that is. First of all it opens for the first time with all the rolls open, therefore you need to manually close each one. The overall interface is (as I expected) like iTunes. The way the closed rolls are displayed has changed dramatically. The first picture of each roll has a mini thumbnail at the left of the roll. The roll description is no longer at the bottom of the roll zones, it is only visible in the edit/ info area. Instead the date(s) and number of files is there. The library folder has become a bundle (and lost nearly 1 GB in the process, I think) that lets you double-click the library file to launch iPhoto using that library. The source sidebar has changed, now it has two basic items under the “Library” category, Events and Photos. Then there’s a new “Recent” category that contains the Last 12 Months and Last Import sections from the old versions, as well as gaining the Trash, Flagged, and any recent events you’ve opened. There’s an “Album” category that contains all your albums. There’ll also be a “Projects” category if you have any calendars, cards, or books in your library. The search function has become more powerful. All the icons used for buttons and sources are new. Many new preferences have been added. There’s a new tab for Web Gallery. A new popup exists that lets you decide what the computer does when a camera is plugged in. There’s a new tab for Events. The defaults for preferences get changed. Now if you used to double-click a photo to open it into editing mode you need to change it back. By default it sets that key to simply magnifying the photo. The term “Roll” itself has been simply replaced by “Event”. That took me a while to learn.

Later I’ll post blog entries deeply describing the other iLife ‘08 apps. Be aware that there are more changes that I haven’t mentioned here. Once I install iWork ‘08 I’ll be doing the same thing for it. Enjoy, Alex.