Apple ILife 06

Bundled with new Macs and sold separately for £55, Apple ILife 06 is a one-stop shop for home multimedia projects.

Aimed specifically at non-experts, it lets you edit your camcorder movies, create DVDs, retouch photos, print professional-quality picture books and even compose music.

ILife 06 features updated versions of its five key applications; Iphoto, Imovie HD, IDVD, Itunes and Garageband. It also introduces Iweb, a brand new web-design program optimise for use with Apple's .Mac online service. See photo gallery.

The secret of ILife's success is that each application is built around a simple, Itunes-like interface and a set of well-designed, yet customisable templates.

Most operations are drag and drop and you can get reasonable results in a matter of minutes.

A case in point is the new Iweb, which features templates for blogs (complete with an RSS feed option), online photo slideshows, audio and video podcasts and more. There are a few annoying restrictions when it comes to presentation but, on the whole, we're very impressed.

New features in Iphoto kick off with a huge improvement in speed. Scrolling through your library is now significantly faster and the program can cope with up to 250,000 images.

We also like the option to quickly produce Photocasts - folders of images other Iphoto users can subscribe to over the Internet like a podcast.

Key improvements in Garageband 3 include a podcast recording studio complete with a range of royalty-free jingles, stingers and sound effects. The package can also record interviews over Apple's Ichat.

Meanwhile, Imovie HD now includes real-time effects and titling, selectable movie themes and the option to open multiple projects at once.

Finally, IDVD has a spruced up map view, can produce widescreen DVDs and supports third-party DVD writers.

With tighter integration between the packages and the excellent new Iweb, ILife 06 really is a must have for any Mac user.

System requirements:
Mac with a PowerPC G4/G5 or Intel Core Duo processor
256MB of Ram
Mac OSX v10.3.9 or later
DVD drive
10GB hard disk