Apple today released Mac OS X 10.6.6, notable for including the Mac App Store. I think the App Store is a great thing for most Mac users, providing a clean, understandable way to buy and install applications. (I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve helped someone with a Mac who has been confused about where a downloaded installer is, how to open it, how to run an installer, and then what to do with the disk image that gets created.)
With the Mac App Store, you buy an application, it’s downloaded to your Applications folder, and placed in the Dock. It will also provide app updates, just as the iOS App Store does.
The iLife ’11 suite is also available, with a couple of interesting twists:
- You can buy the latest iPhoto, iMovie, or GarageBand applications separately for $14.99 each. If you don’t care about GarageBand, for example, you don’t need to pay for it by buying the entire suite as a retail box.
- However, those are the only iLife ’11 apps available from the Mac App Store. iDVD and iWeb (neither of which were updated for iLife ’11, but which are included in the boxed set) are not available. So, if you wanted the entire suite, you’re better off paying $4.03 more to buy the packaged version with all five apps (or currently $3.27 more from Amazon.com).
If you already own iLife ’11, the apps appear as “Installed” in the App Store. Based on what I’m reading from some Mac developers, only updates for applications purchased from the App Store will be available using the Updates feature; so, you’ll still need to run Software Update (from the Apple menu) to get the latest versions.
Jeff Carlson | Never Enough Coffee Creations 
I was just wondering, if you know, will iDVD from iLife 09 work with the iMovie 11. Since I already have iDVD (09) can I just upgrade to iMovie 11 from the app store and continue to make DVDs for friends and family, or do I have to purchase the entire iLife 11 on a disk in order for it all to integrate. I guess another question that goes along with that…will my photos from iPhoto 09 be shared for use in iMovie 11? Any information that you have would be very helpful.
P.S. I found your site a while ago and find the information to be practical and useful. Thanks for the good reading.
Brian,
I don’t have a good way to test this (all my machines already have iLife ’11 installed), but yes, buying iMovie ’11 from the Mac App Store and using it with iDVD ’09 SHOULD work.
Let me know what you discover!
Jeff
Jeff,
Thank you for taking the time to answer. I took the chance and bought iMovie’11 and tried it. I made a short 5 minute movie and shared it to iDVD’09. After the movie finished processing iDVD’09 opened and the movie and menus were ready to customize. The only oddity that I noticed was that the animated menu (Revolution I think it’s called) wasn’t animated when I first started customizing or when I tried it on the sample DVD player. I adjusted the duration of the drop zone video and saved the project. After opening it again it worked. I “burned” the dvd to an .iso and when it finished DVD player had no problem opening and playing the .iso file. I’m going to experiment a little more with the menu and see if it was a one time glitch or not. If it persists I’ll probably call or email Apple support. Thanks again for your site. -Brian
When I talked to Apple about iLife ’11, I asked if anything was changed at all in iDVD and iWeb, and they said there’s a little bit of change to make them compatible with the new suite. But it sounds like it’s nothing destructive. Thanks for reporting back!