Tips and Tricks

iLife Tips

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The iLife Suite

iLife is Apple's bundle of consumer orientated multimedia applications.

Designed to handle, organise and sometimes create various media such as pictures (iPhoto), movies (iMovie & iDVD) and music (iTunes & Garageband), the goal of the iLife suite is to provide a simple and friendly way for home users to turn their Mac into a "digital hub".

With the ability of current Mac models to connect to a television, stereo system and Internet (wirelessly even) — in addition to the option of wireless keyboard and mouse, iLife can replace your CD player, DVD player and photo albums.

Throw in a few games and the Mac — especially the Mac Mini — is well positioned to take a main role as the centre of a home's entertainment needs.

Once freely available as a download from Apple's web site, the suite is now a paid-for product with only the iTunes component remaining available via the web.

Beginner

  • iPhoto and iTunes: the library is the collection of all items (i.e. pictures and songs) that have been brought into the application.

  • iPhoto and iTunes: After a while the number of items in the library will become overwhelming. Organise the content into albums / play lists (click the little "+" at the bottom left of the window) and then drag individual items into these album / play lists to keep on top of things.

Intermediate

  • iTunes: if you have a scanner, you can import album cover art into iTunes and associate it with songs. When the song is playing, the art will show in the bottom left square.

  • iMovie: The original clips used in your project are stored in a folder next to your project file. Resist the temptation to move things around in the Finder or your project won't successfully open.

Advanced

  • iTunes: if you have a song with a period of silence at the beginning or end, you can do File > Get Info on the song, and alter the play range to remove the silent parts.