iLife ‘06, .Mac Updates

Last, but not least, iLife ‘06 has been released – with some updates that maybe of interests to some Mac genealogists. Along with it, an update to .Mac to allow for improved integration between the two.

iLife ‘06 updates:

iPhoto – Requires Mac OS X 10.3.9
* Improved performance
* Support for up to 250,000 photos
* Photocasting allows you to share albums with other iPhoto users through .Mac
* Full-screen mode (editing/comparing of images)
* iWeb compatability (see iWeb below)
* In addition to ordering photo books and prints through iPhoto, you can now order greeting cards and calendars.

iWeb
* New web/blog application for iLife ‘06 – besides functioning as a blog/homepage software, it allows you to easily share photos through the web using iPhoto.
* You can set photo albums to be public or private through iPhoto, and you can automatically update your website through iPhoto.

iMovie
* New themes, effects, upgraded audio support, and multipe-projects open at the same time.
* Exporting video to an iPod.

iDVD
* Wide-screen menus
* Support for 3rd party/OEM DVD Burners
* New DVD creation mode (“Magic iDVD)
* Better photo slideshows

iWork ‘06

iWork ‘06 was released with some major enhancements to Pages (Apple’s word processor/publishing application) and Keynote (Apple’s presentation application). Although a spreadsheet application was not added, spreadsheet functionality was increased. Among the changes:
* Ability to create more sophisticated/compex documents and presentations, including spreadsheet-like tables
* 3D Charts
* Image editing (similar to iPhoto)
* Masking tools added
* New ways to view the documents as you create them, as well as the ability to control the viewing angle for presentations
* Improved Mac OS X Address Book compatability
* Dozens of new themes

iWork ‘06 is available now for $79 through the Apple Store.

Universal Binaries, Rosetta, Intel CPUs

Apple has updated their pages concerning Universal Binaries, Rosetta, and Intel CPUs:

Apple’s Rosetta page
Apple’s Intel CPU page
Apple’s Universal Binary page

We also have a small page concerning Universal Binaries here. As of yet, few Mac genealogy applications are compiled as Universal Binaries (MacFamilyTree being one), but as far as I know, most Mac genealogy developers are going to work on Intel-compatible/Universal Binary versions of their software. With Rosetta, they have plenty of time – Rosetta won’t be like running a Mac OS 8.x or 9.x application where you have to load up the Classic environment – it runs PowerPC Mac OS X applications alongside your other OS X applications, basically it’s transparent to you that it’s a PowerPC application instead of a Universal Binary. After all, even if a PowerPC-based application under OS X on Intel runs 25% slower than on a PowerPC-based Mac, considering the new iMac is twice as fast as the old, and the MacBook Pro is upto 4 times as fast…well I don’t think we need to worry about performance problems

Mac OS X 10.4.4, iTunes, QuickTime

Along with the other significant upgrades, Mac OS X was updated to version 10.4.4. Among the updates to Mac OS X 10.4:
* Safari updates (including RSS/.Mac sync fixes)
* Some Widgets updated, others added (including a phone number lookup)
* iChat improvements/fixes
* PDF document fixes
* Improved networking
* iPhoto updates to work with RAW graphics files from recent digital cameras
* Addresses . Mac synchronization issues
* Various other fixes

iTunes 6.0.2 – Stability and performance improvements
QuickTime 7.0.4 – bug fixes, support for iLife ‘06, H.264 performance improvements. (This update may have been pulled).

BibDesk 1.2.1

Version 1.2.1 of BibDesk, the graphical BibTeX-bibliography manager for Mac OS X is now available on SourceForge.net.

Full list of changes/additions. Among the changes, improvements/additions to the Spotlight support, Text editing, and Autofile.

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