It’s been a year since we heard about iRoots and iRoots Pro – has anybody heard about any updates since then?
This is a partial reprint of the article linked above:
Could Apple be getting into the genealogy software and DNA testing market?
Apparently there will be two versions of iRoots. “iRoots Express” will ship with iLife ’07. It’s limited to 2,000 people, 10 photos, 3 hours of audio, and one hour of video per person, .
The “iRoots Pro” version is limited only by your Mac’s memory and harddrive space, and adds full photo, audio, and video editing capabilities. It ships separately. Among other things, it can suggest who and what you should research, based on how interesting it thinks the people will be. It has the ability to fill in missing gaps in your genealogy as well as break through brickwalls. For example, If you don’t know your GGGG-Great Aunt Mary’s husband’s name, it can actually suggest what the name probably was, based on the popularity of names of men who lived in the area at the time. The “Pro” version also has the ability to fill in parts of the 1890 census that are relevant to your family, if you have the iDNA kit.
Sources also said that Apple was considering a hardware add-on, a “iDNA” kit that allows you to test yourself and your family members’ DNA, and then the results are developed right there on your Mac, using a USB or Firewire-powered device about the size of the iSight. The results are automatically uploaded into iRoots. You can buy family sample packs, where you get 200 swabs and test tubes to send out to family members, and they are pre-packaged/pre-postage paid, and with just a few minutes of their time, they take the sample, and send them back to you to process through the “iDNA” hardware.
If you have the “iDNA Express”, you can process around 10-15 samples an hour. If you upgrade to “iDNA Studio”, you can process around 200 samples an hour (depending on whether you are running a MacBook, Mac mini vs iMac, MacBook Pro, or Mac Pro). No word on a package discount for “iDNA Studio” and “iRoots Pro” being purchased together.