The Problems With iMovie 8

When Apple released a new version of its iLife suite—its $80 package containing iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb and GarageBand, last August, few Mac users had much good to say about the program. What follows is New York Times David Pogue's blog.

The enhancements in iPhoto, iWeb and GarageBand are great. But iMovie ‘08 is an utter bafflement.

Most people are used to a product cycle that goes like this: Release a new version every year or two, each more capable than the last. Ensure that it’s backward-compatible with your existing documents.

IMovie ‘08, on the other hand, has been totally misnamed. It’s not iMovie at all. In fact, it’s nothing like its predecessor and contains none of the same code or design. It’s designed for an utterly different task, and a lot of people are screaming bloody murder.

The new iMovie was, as Apple admits, designed primarily for throwing together movies quickly. It lets you scan through a clip to see what’s in it, isolate the good parts, and rapidly drop them into a sequence.

But iMovie 6 was just as good at those tasks; you could scrub through, chop and drag its clips just as easily. Meanwhile, iMovie ‘08 is incapable of the more sophisticated editing that the old iMovie made so enjoyable. The old iMovie offered the essential tools of professional programs like Final Cut Pro without the cost or complexity.

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/apple-takes-a-step-back-with-imovie-08/index.html?hp&scp=2-b&sq=imovie+8&st=nyt