TidBITS#779/09-May-05
=====================
Apple made much of the improvements in iPhoto 5, but how do
those features and others fare under Adam's scrutiny? Also in
this issue, Jeff Carlson takes a look at the new iMac and eMac
models, and examines Tiger's iChat AV 3.0, with its multi-person
audio and video chats. In the news, Security Update 2005-005
patches Mac OS X 10.3.9, iTunes 3.8 appears, DragThing turns 10,
more Spotlight details appear, Adam makes the radio rounds, and we
give away 5 copies of Stock WatchTower, a stock analysis program.
Topics:
MailBITS/09-May-05
DealBITS Drawing for Stock WatchTower
iMac G5 and eMac Lines Refreshed
A New Dimension for iChat AV
iPhoto 5: New Features Abound, Limitations Remain
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/09-May-05
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-779.html>
<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/2005/TidBITS#779_09-May-05.etx>
Copyright 2005 TidBITS: Reuse governed by Creative Commons license
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MailBITS/09-May-05
------------------
**Security Update 2005-005 for Mac OS X 10.3.9** -- Apple has
released Security Update 2005-005 to address several online
security issues with Mac OS X 10.3.9 and Mac OS X Server 10.3.9.
Users can download the patch via Software Update or from Apple's
Web site (about 6 MB, depending on version).
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301528>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/>
Security Update 2005-005 rolls in patches for a number of Mac OS X
applications and technologies, as well as components of Mac OS X's
underlying Unix implementation. Key fixes address buffer overflows
and means by which attackers could potentially overwrite files,
escalate privileges, or execute arbitrary code using the Finder,
Help Viewer, the Foundation and AppKit application frameworks,
Terminal, and AppleScript. Other fixes affect the Apache Web
server, lukemftpd, sudo, Directory Services, VPN, and X11; in
addition, Security Update 2005-005 disables Bluetooth file sharing
by default, and prevents Bluetooth services from accessing files
outside the default file exchange directory. As of this writing,
a similar update has not been made available for Mac OS X 10.4
Tiger, and it's not clear whether Tiger already addresses these
security concerns. [GD]
**Apple Releases iTunes 4.8** -- Apple today released iTunes 4.8,
a free download with minimal documentation. According to the
ReadMe file, "iTunes 4.8 includes new Music Store features
and support for transferring contacts and calendars from your
computer to your iPod," noting that the latter feature requires
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Poking around a bit reveals that Apple is
incorporating video into iTunes; you can drag a QuickTime movie
to the Library, where it appears with a small gray videocamera
icon. Playing the movie displays it in the little Now Playing
box (where album covers appear); clicking the movie opens it
in a separate window, and clicking a new Show Video Full Screen
button presents the movie full screen (although the full-screen
option doesn't work for videos or movie trailers downloaded
from the iTunes Music Store.) A new preference also controls
the default window setting for video playback. As of this writing,
the update was available only as a stand-alone download, but I'm
guessing it will appear via Software Update soon. The iTunes 4.8
installer is an 11 MB download. [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/itunes48.html>
**A Trio of Radio Interviews** -- In conjunction with the 15th
anniversary of TidBITS and the release of our Take Control ebooks
about Tiger, I've been doing the radio show rounds. On 27-Apr-05
I took a break from tracking down a maddening bug to talk about
the history of TidBITS and the Macintosh with Gene Steinberg of
the Tech Night Owl Live. Then, on 30-Apr-05, I spent a snappy 10
minutes chatting to Scott Sheppard of Inside Mac Radio. And then
late on 31-Apr-05, I had one of my always-enjoyable discussions
with Chuck Joiner on the User Group Report. [ACE]
<http://www.macradio.com/thursday/nightowl/>
<rtsp://stream.mactvnetwork.com/nightowl_archive/2005/04/nightowl_050428.mov>
<http://www.osxfaq.com/radio/04-2005/04-30.html>
<http://www.mugcenter.com/usergroupreport/2005/514.html>
**DragThing Celebrates 10-Year Anniversary** -- Hard on the heels
of TidBITS's celebration of its 15-year anniversary comes the 10th
anniversary of James Thomson's launcher DragThing. We're proud
to say we've been writing about DragThing ever since it first
emerged. It's still going strong here in the age of Tiger, and
to some of us, it's a must-have utility, making up for the Dock's
shortcomings and then some. In honor of this happy event, James is
giving a secret discount to new DragThing customers. To find out
what the discount is and how to get it, check out the celebratory
Web page at the first URL below. [MAN]
<http://www.dragthing.com/english/tenyears.html>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08071>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=01488>
**Spotlight Qualifiers Posted on Apple Site** -- Sure enough,
I write an article that says Apple hasn't yet provided detail
on a given subject, and they go and update their site. In last
week's TidBITS, I wrote about using some restricting syntax for
making searches in Tiger with Spotlight, and said Apple hadn't
provided the detail necessary to know what control words and
terms to use. They do now.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08087>
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/tips/spotlight.html>
Although there are many kinds of metadata, Apple is exposing
just the item kind and the item's modification date or the date
in a calendar item. The syntax is pretty straightforward and they
provide the vocabulary for it now. If you want to search on more
metadata attributes, you can use Smart Folders. [GF]
DealBITS Drawing for Stock WatchTower
-------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From 1995 through 2001, Tonya and I participated in a stock
investment club with a number of our Mac-using friends. It was a
valuable learning experience, and the club did fairly well, though
it was difficult to do badly in the stock market during some of
those years. We worked mostly within the advice promulgated by
the National Association of Investors Corporation (NAIC), and
although that system wasn't terribly data-intensive, we still
found it difficult to enter data for stocks we were investigating
and to keep up-to-date with stocks in our portfolio. Some online
services offered downloadable information for a fee, but either
the fees were too high or there was some other problem with the
service, such as working only in Windows. Tonya and I bowed out
of the investment club when we left Seattle, and without the
structure and positive peer pressure of a monthly meeting to make
time in our busy schedules, we've essentially stopped investing
in individual stocks.
<http://www.better-investing.org/>
I can't say when or if we'll pick up investing again, but there's
now a Macintosh application that looks as though it would provide
the kind of data we wanted in a flexible manner. WillStein
Software's Stock WatchTower downloads a vast amount of data
covering thousands of stocks from a variety of freely accessible
Web sites on its first launch (about 150 MB), and updates that
data with much-faster but still significant (about an hour over
a broadband Internet connection) downloads on every subsequent
launch. Using that data, you can then filter and sort just the
stocks whose data matches criteria you set: P/E ratios within
a certain range, current annual earnings over a certain amount,
prices nearing 52-week highs, and so on. Stock WatchTower can
then graph each stock's data so you can more easily identify buy
points, or, for stocks that you already own, prices at which you
want to sell. You can create Watch Lists, which are manually
generated lists of stocks much like playlists in iTunes, and
WatchTowers, which are automatically generated lists akin to
smart playlists.
<http://www.willstein.com/stocks/>
Obviously, I'm not vouching for Stock WatchTower personally,
since I haven't used it in any real way, but if you've been
looking for a tool to help you accumulate and analyze stock data,
be sure to enter this week's DealBITS drawing for 5 copies of
Stock WatchTower, each worth $49.95. Those who don't win will
receive a discount as well, and if you want to check out the
software right away, WillStein offers a 30-day trial version
and a 30-day money-back guarantee. All information gathered is
covered by our comprehensive privacy policy. Be careful with your
spam filters, since you must be able to receive email from my
address to learn if you've won, and remember that you can increase
your chances of receiving a copy of Stock WatchTower by telling
your friends about this DealBITS drawing.
<http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/willstein/>
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/privacy.html>
iMac G5 and eMac Lines Refreshed
--------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Shortly after releasing new Power Mac G5 models (see "Apple Speed
Bumps Power Mac G5" in TidBITS-778_), Apple announced updates to
two of its consumer desktop lines, the iMac G5 and the eMac.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08083>
**iMac G5 Improved** -- Apple bumped up the processor, graphics
card, and built-in memory of the flat-panel iMac G5. As before,
it's available in two sizes and three standard configurations.
The low-end 17-inch model, at $1,300, is outfitted with a 1.8 GHz
PowerPC G5 processor (up from 1.6 GHz) with a 600 MHz frontside
bus, 160 GB hard drive, and a slot-loading Combo Drive (DVD-
ROM/CD-RW). The mid-range 17-inch model ($1,500) and the 20-inch
model ($1,800) both include a 2.0 GHz processor (up from 1.8 GHz)
with a 667 MHz frontside bus and an 8x dual-layer SuperDrive.
The 17-inch configuration includes the 160 GB hard disk, while
the 20-inch beastie is equipped with a 250 GB hard disk.
<http://www.apple.com/imac/>
All three configurations now ship with 512 MB of RAM (with support
for up to 2 GB), and an ATI Radeon 9600 graphics card with 128 MB
of memory, as well as the original iMac G5's complement of ports:
two FireWire 400, three USB 2.0, VGA output, and S-video output.
All models also come with built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth
2.0+EDR wireless networking; previously, the Bluetooth was a
build-to-order option. Each runs Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and includes
iLife '05.
**eMac Sees Boost** -- The CRT-screen-based eMac continues to
be Apple's quiet inexpensive workhorse, and that's even more
true thanks to last week's improvements to the all-in-one
computer. The new eMac configuration includes a 1.42 GHz PowerPC
G4 processor, 512 MB of memory, a Radeon 9600 graphics card with
64 MB of memory, and an 8x dual-layer SuperDrive. The $800 low-end
configuration now sports an 80 GB hard disk, while the $1,000
model has a 160 GB hard disk. They both ship with Mac OS X 10.4
Tiger and iLife '05.
<http://www.apple.com/emac/>
A New Dimension for iChat AV
----------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Last year I "attended" a briefing with a few Apple representatives
while sitting in my office chair in Seattle. They were in
Cupertino, and thanks to the video chat capabilities of iChat AV,
we had a face-to-face conversation. But since there were three
of them, they had to crowd into the frame by sitting behind
each other so that I could see them all.
If we have a similar briefing now, I'll have a much clearer
picture of each person. iChat AV 3.0, included in Mac OS X 10.4
Tiger, can now handle video chats of up to four people (you and
three others), with potentially better image quality than before.
This capability comes with a price, however, as some Macs aren't
capable of participating.
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/ichat/>
**Multi-Person Chats** -- The multi-person video chat is one of
the snazziest-looking new features of Tiger, which is why Apple
has included screenshots of it in action on most of the company's
advertisements I've seen. When two people are chatting, iChat AV
3.0 uses the same appearance as in iChat AV under Panther: you
appear in a small corner window, and the other person occupies
the rest of the window.
But as soon as you add a third person, your participants appear
on planes angled in 3D, as if you had set up two LCD screens.
(The Audio and Video status buttons in iChat's Buddy List show up
as stacked icons to indicate that a person is running iChat AV
3.0 and is capable of multi-person chats.) A fourth person added
appears on a similar plane, but facing straight-on. The idea is
that you're all sitting around a conference table, and Apple
enhances the illusion by providing surface reflections below
each person's plane; I have to admit that I spent most of my
first multi-person video chats staring at the reflections, which
update in real time.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/779/ichat3-Rich-Jason-Adam.jpg>
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/779/ichat3-Jon-Jason-Chris-Jeff.jpg>
Unlike the previous version, not just anyone can start a multi-
person video chat. The originating computer performs much of
the video encoding and audio-video synchronization, leading to
stringent hardware requirements: a Mac with at least dual 1 GHz
PowerPC G4 processors, or one with a PowerPC G5 CPU, along with
384 Kbps of Internet bandwidth. Unfortunately, that rules out
Apple's entire laptop line as video chat initiators.
Participation in a multi-person video chat is less demanding:
you need at least a 1 GHz PowerPC G4 or a dual 800 MHz PowerPC
G4-based Power Mac - along with 100 Kbps of Internet bandwidth.
iChat AV also supports video chat with Windows users running the
latest version of AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), but only one to
one, not for multi-person chats.
As advertised by Apple, the video quality is improved due to
iChat's use of the H.264 video codec, but the quality also depends
on the connection and the hardware involved. Slower connections
appear blurrier than faster ones; that isn't necessarily a bad
thing, as iChat is sacrificing fine detail in favor of more fluid
motion (see the image at the second URL above for an example).
iChat AV 3.0 also features audio chats of up to 10 people, which
doesn't carry the same hardware and connection demands. Hosting
a 10-person conference requires a Mac running a 1 GHz G4, dual
800 MHz G4, or G5 processor and a 128 Kbps Internet connection.
Participation in an audio chat needs any G3, G4, or G5 processor
and a 56 Kbps connection.
**Miscellaneous Changes** -- The multi-person chats are the
star attractions, but iChat AV 3.0 includes a number of other
noticeable changes. It's easier to switch among several iChat
or AIM accounts using a new Switch To item under the iChat menu.
You can set a profile that describes you when other people view
your information from their Buddy Lists by choosing Change My
Profile from the Buddies menu; previously, you had to launch
the AIM application to edit this field.
Speaking of switching, iChat includes a preference that dictates
what the program should do when you use Fast User Switching to go
to another user, either to log out of iChat (the old method), or
to change your status to Away. If you are away, and someone chats
you up anyway, you can set iChat to fire back with a reply (either
your custom status message or "Auto-reply: I am away from my
computer" if set to the default Away status).
The Groups feature is also improved, with a more comprehensible
interface. I never bothered with groups before, but now I can
arrange my buddies according to affiliations (such as a TidBITS
group), which appear under banner headings in the Buddy List.
For companies looking to secure their instant message traffic,
iChat AV 3.0 now supports Jabber, which can encrypt messages.
You can sign onto existing Jabber servers, or use the Jabber-based
iChat Server included with Mac OS X 10.4 Server.
<http://www.jabber.org/>
<http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/collaborationservices.html>
Apple also incorporated a popular third-party feature into iChat.
In addition to Available and Away status messages, you can choose
to display the title and artist of the song currently playing in
iTunes (which I used to use iChat Status for). Clicking an arrow
at the right edge of the status message takes you to that song in
the iTunes Music Store if you want to sample (or buy) music your
friends are playing.
<http://www.ittpoi.com/ichatstatus/>
**Video Future** -- I use iChat every day for text-chatting with
friends and colleagues, and only occasionally chatting via audio
or video. Although the new multi-person video chatting capability
is cool, I'm curious to see how often people end up using it.
Still, it does provide an inexpensive, built-in way to participate
in video conferences, something that formerly required more
expensive, often proprietary services to accomplish.
iPhoto 5: New Features Abound, Limitations Remain
-------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I'll admit it. I was rather disappointed with iPhoto 4, the
previous version of Apple's consumer-level photo management
program (see "iPhoto 4: The Potential Remains" in TidBITS-718_).
It wasn't that it lacked high-end features; it was that it was
the latest in a series of mediocre implementations of what was,
and still is, a brilliant idea. Apple was the first to understand
that most people want a soup-to-nuts photo management program
that handles everything from importing and organizing through
editing and output. And iPhoto remains pretty much the only
such program on the Mac, although several similar programs have
appeared on the Windows side.
<http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07556>
Keep in mind, I have a bit more interest in iPhoto than most
people, having written a Visual QuickStart Guide about each
incarnation of the program so far. And in fact, my iPhoto 5 for
Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide should be on bookstore shelves
now; alternatively, you can buy the PDF version for $14, which
is roughly equivalent to the price at discount book retailers.
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321335384/tidbitselectro00/ref%3Dnosim/>
<http://store.eSellerate.net/store/catalog.aspx?s=STR4750768179>
So, based on spending several months writing about iPhoto 5, would
I recommend an upgrade? iPhoto has gone from free (iPhoto 1 and
iPhoto 2) to part of the $50 iLife '04 package (iPhoto 4), and now
it's available only as part of the $80 iLife '05 package or with
the purchase of a new Mac. As a free program, iPhoto deserved some
slack, but I had trouble recommending iPhoto 4 to anyone who
wasn't already committed to iPhoto. With iPhoto 5, numerous
improvements make the program significantly more powerful than
its predecessors, but notable omissions - many held over from the
very first version of iPhoto - remain. Overall, yes, I do recommend
upgrading if you already use iPhoto - iPhoto 5 is without a doubt
an improvement over iPhoto 4, but that doesn't mean I'm happy with
every aspect of the program. Let's look at each of the major parts
of the program so you can determine what's good and what's not.
**Importing & Managing Photos** -- Relatively little changed with
how you import photos into iPhoto, although Apple modified the
interface slightly, displaying your camera or media card reader
in the Source pane with your other collections of photos. When
you're importing, a preview appears for each photo as it comes in;
as with iPhoto 4, you can work in other parts of the program while
you're importing.
Much hyped by Apple is iPhoto 5's new capability (actually
provided by Mac OS X) to import camera movies and RAW files
(from at least some cameras, though mine don't do RAW at all);
neither feature has rocked my world. Many people have been
confused by the way iPhoto handles RAW files; apparently it
immediately stores the RAW file in an appropriate Originals
folder and generates a JPEG copy for you to work on. This is
consistent with RAW being a "digital negative" format; it's not
something you ever work with directly. You can get the RAW file
out of iPhoto by exporting in the original format; Revert to
Original creates a new JPEG copy of the RAW original.
Movies are much easier to explain, and more disappointing.
Yes, iPhoto imports them, and yes, you can add them to albums,
assign them ratings and keywords, and... that's it. You can't
even play the movies within iPhoto; double-clicking one opens
it in QuickTime Player. I'd like to see iPhoto gain at least
the capability to play the movies without opening another
application.
A real disappointment is that iPhoto still, four years later,
lacks the basic feature of Apple's own Image Capture application:
selective import of only a few pictures from a full camera. Sure,
iPhoto can avoid duplicates, but that's still a lot slower than
being able to select a few thumbnails and click Import. Having
cameras appear in the Source pane provides the perfect interface
too; when you selected it in the Source pane, all the available
thumbnails could appear in the main window just as they do with
any other source.
Also frustrating is the fact that although iPhoto allows you to
use multiple iPhoto Library folders, the interface for switching
between them remains primitive at best. When launching iPhoto,
if you hold down the Option key, it prompts you to create or pick
a new library. In the end, my advice remains the same: if you
want to keep entirely different sets of photos in separate iPhoto
Library folders, use Brian Webster's free iPhoto Library Manager.
Note that there's no reason to do this for performance reasons;
it's purely for organizational situations where you don't want
to mix work and personal photos, for instance.
<http://homepage.mac.com/bwebster/iphotolibrarymanager.html>
**Organizing Photos** -- iPhoto 5 brings some important new
features to photo organization. Most notable is the concept
of these things called "folders" - perhaps you've heard of them.
Folders, much like the real-world folders everyone uses to store
pieces of paper, let you collect sets of albums, slideshows, and
books. You can think of it as a "hierarchical filing system," and
it's extremely useful; kudos to Apple for adding it to iPhoto 5
only 20-some years after introducing the concept in the Finder.
Pardon my sarcasm, but the inability of previous versions to allow
any sort of hierarchical filing was one of the top complaints
I heard. Anyway, hierarchical filing is now possible, and it's
a good thing.
The Source pane used to hold only albums, but iPhoto 5 now also
shows other collections there: folders, slideshows, and books.
In the past, slideshow settings and book layouts were properties
of an album, which made it difficult to create and work variants
over multiple sessions. Although you can rearrange the various
items in the Source pane, they always maintain the same basic
sort order: folders, smart albums, albums, books, and slideshows.
The same is true when they're in folders.
Apple completely revamped how keywords work, so now you define
them in a pane in iPhoto's Preferences window, and you assign
them and search with them in a new Keywords pane below the Source
pane. I'm reserving judgment on the keywords interface; iPhoto's
previous lousy approaches trained me never to bother with
keywords. One interesting note: iPhoto 5.0.2 fixes the searching
such that when you select two keywords, iPhoto shows only those
photos that contain both keywords (narrowing the search), rather
than photos that contain either keyword (expanding the search)
as was true before 5.0.2.
Another new element under the Source pane is the Calendar pane,
which is an awfully nice way to display just photos from selected
time periods. The periods can be either contiguous or non-
contiguous; I very much like being able to limit the visible
photos to those within certain date ranges.
A new Search field lets you search for text in titles, filenames,
comments, and keywords; it's a well-done ad hoc search along the
lines of the similar feature in iTunes. I haven't used it much
since I don't put much effort into adding metadata to my photos,
but it works both well and quickly. (As an aside, the reason
I don't spend effort on metadata is that iPhoto still provides
no built-in way to export photos and metadata. I believe it's
possible, since the Flickr export plug-in does it, but until
I can be sure that my time won't be wasted in the event I ever
want to switch to another program, I won't assign keywords or
title photos.)
All these features are welcome, but if you'll permit some
additional astonishment, why the heck can't we change photo
and film roll titles (along with dates, keywords, and ratings)
directly, as has been possible in the Finder since 1984? If you
want to rename a photo or film roll, you'd probably think to click
the name and wait a moment, as you do in the Finder, and then type
the new name. But no, renaming requires selecting the item and
then changing its name in the Info pane. iPhoto has been broken
in this fashion since day 1; it's embarrassing.
**Editing Photos** -- Perhaps the marquee feature of iPhoto 5 is
its Adjust panel, which provides a number of ways you can adjust
the color, exposure, and sharpness of a photo. Speaking as someone
who never understood levels histograms before learning them to
explain in my book, I've become extremely fond of the control
that the Adjust panel gives me over my photos. The Enhance button,
unchanged from iPhoto 4, doesn't do as good a job as I can do
with the Adjust panel - I've radically improved photos that would
have been lousy otherwise. Of course, the downside is that now
I spend more time fixing photos than I did before. Ideally,
you could click the Enhance button and see its effect on the
sliders in the Adjust panel so it could become a starting point
for improving photos.
Understanding that the Adjust panel is a very good thing, a few
criticisms are in order. Its Brightness and Contrast sliders
are essentially useless; you should always use the Exposure
and Sharpness sliders instead for better results - that is,
unless you're using a PowerPC G3-based Mac, in which case
Brightness and Contrast are your only adjustment options.
Although the Adjust panel is an interesting new interface
element - a translucent floating window that lets you see your
image underneath - I find the sliders themselves clumsy and hard
to adjust, thanks in large part to their tiny size (and I have
decent eyes and coordination!). You can click the icons on either
end to move by single-increment steps, but it would be nice to
have keyboard control as well.
Apart from Adjust panel, most of the changes to iPhoto's editing
capabilities are steps backwards. The red-eye reduction interface
changed for the worse; now you're supposed to select the tool and
then click in the middle of the eye you want to fix. But eyes are
often very small, making them tricky targets, and since the red-
eye reduction doesn't do anything if you miss an appropriately
colored area, you never know if you've clicked in the right spot
and it hasn't worked, or if you clicked in the wrong spot. Plus,
if you're fixing red-eye in a group shot, it can take a while to
click each person's eyes. Luckily, the old interface has been
added back in iPhoto 5.0.2; just select an area roughly around
the eyes and click the Red-Eye button.
You can no longer Command-drag a photo while zoomed in to move
around; Command-clicking now sets a white point, moving the
Temperature and Tint sliders in the Adjust panel if you have
it open. The idea is that you're supposed to click on something
white in the picture, but I've found it nearly impossible to
find something the right shade in any given photo.
But the most annoying problem is that Apple changed the way edits
are applied to the photo. In previous versions, you could use Undo
multiple times, working your way back through edits, even if you'd
gone on to edit another photo, switched modes, or whatever. Once
you start editing a photo, iPhoto 5 queues up all your edits
(which does have the useful effect of eliminating any worry about
making adjustments in a particular order) and then applies them
when you move to another photo or switch modes. Undo works only
as long as you're editing that photo; as soon as your changes
are saved, you can only revert all the way back to the original.
Thus, experimentation becomes a bit tricky, since although Undo
will step back through individual changes as long as you're
editing that image, the Control key before/after view shortcut
sees only the full set of changes, not just the last one you've
made. It's also easy to make an accidental edit and save it
without meaning to; there's no indication that you've made a
change that will be saved. And worst, it means that saving changes
has become painfully slow. Every time I see that Saving Changes
dialog, my blood pressure rises.
**Showing Off Your Photos** -- Once you've imported, organized,
and edited your photos, it's time to show them off to others.
iPhoto 5 is a mixed bag in this regard; slideshow and book
creation is totally new and far better; printing, exporting
Web pages, and everything else is almost entirely unchanged
from iPhoto 4.
With iPhoto 5, Apple introduced what I call "saved slideshows,"
or slideshows which stick around in the Source pane and with which
you can work repeatedly. The old approach, a "basic slideshow,"
is still present, and it's what you use when you just want to use
a slideshow to cull bad photos from the last import, for instance.
But saved slideshows are really where it's at, since you can
adjust the timing, transitions, and even the Ken Burns Effect
(pan and zoom within a still image) for each individual photo.
You can also export a saved slideshow to a QuickTime movie. One
warning, though: the automatic Ken Burns Effect works differently
on each playing of a saved slideshow, so if you want predictable
results, make sure to set the Ken Burns Effect manually for each
slide. iPhoto 5.0.2 provides a useful slideshow fix - fitting the
length of the slideshow to selected music now works. You still
must select either a single song or a playlist from iTunes;
you can't select multiple arbitrary songs.
Also totally revamped, and generally for the better, is book
creation. No longer do you have to work left-to-right or risk
utter confusion; now you can drag photos from an unplaced photos
list into specific slots on a page. Dragging photos into blank
spots adds them (if allowed by that design) and dragging photos
onto other photos swaps them. My main criticism of the new book
interface is that the Autoflow layout option causes far more work
than it saves if you have any opinion at all about how you want
your book to look. Stick with manual layout and you'll be fine.
iPhoto 5.0.2 changes the layout interface a bit from 5.0; no
longer are you prompted to choose between manual and automatic
layout each time you start; instead iPhoto informs you about the
Autoflow button. Also, in the first release, choosing an option
from the Page Type pop-up menu would pull photos down from the
unplaced photo list; now you must drag photos in manually at all
times. But most welcome in iPhoto 5.0.2 is a fix for a bug that
caused constant crashes in my main iPhoto library when building
books. Thanks, Apple!
Perhaps my favorite fact about both slideshows and books in
iPhoto 5 is that you can essentially crop images for a particular
use, rather than cropping the original in a permanent way. With
slideshows, it's a matter of using the normal zoom slider; with
books, you double-click the photo and zoom in. In either case,
once you've zoomed, you can drag the image around in the frame
to center it as desired. The different interfaces can be a touch
confusing; if you double-click a photo in a saved slideshow, you
edit it, but to edit a photo in a book, you must double-click it
once to switch into zoom mode, and then double-click it again to
edit it. Control-clicking a photo in a book provides an Edit Photo
option, but no such similar option is available if you Control-
click a photo in a saved slideshow.
One notable aspect of sharing photos that has unfortunately
remained unchanged is that burning a disc of photos still creates
an iPhoto Library folder on the destination disc, making the
photos easily accessible to iPhoto users and rather inaccessible
to everyone else. You can export photos to a ready-to-burn disc
in the Finder, but it's clumsier than is necessary; iPhoto could
simply ask you whether you wanted an iPhoto Library folder on
the destination or a series of folders corresponding with albums.
Also unchanged is iPhoto's lack of support for sharing photos
between multiple users of the same Mac, or sharing photos over
a network such that multiple people can organize and edit the
same photos. Both limitations can be worked around, thanks in
part to iPhoto Library Manager, but such hacks shouldn't be
necessary.
**A Closing Snapshot** -- It may sound as though I'm unhappy with
iPhoto 5, but that's not the case. What I'm unhappy about is the
seemingly obvious problems suffered by previous versions that
have once again gone unresolved. In fact, I like the new saved
slideshows a lot, and I like the new book interface (though the
new themes aren't terribly impressive), and I adore what the
Adjust panel enables me to do. The new keywords interface is
definitely improved, and the Calendar pane and Search field
are extremely welcome.
But I'm once again left pining for the next version of iPhoto
which could, at least in theory, provide basics like selective
import, a non-iPhoto-specific option for burning discs, better
sharing of photos on the same Mac or with networked Macs, an
option for exporting metadata, and direct modification of photo
and film roll titles. I understand that it's never as much fun
to fix broken old features as it is to create new ones, but
after four releases some of these omissions are becoming painful.
I have no intention of switching away from iPhoto, in large part
because I don't consider any collection of programs as clean and
easy to use as iPhoto is for everyday photo handling tasks, and
there's no direct competition at all. In fact, what iPhoto really
needs, though I'd be incredibly surprised to see it, is a serious
competitor. Ideally, such a program could use the same database
and photo store, but by its mere existence could significantly
improve the overall state of photo management for the rest of us.
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/09-May-05
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The second URL below each thread description points to the
discussion on our Web Crossing server, which will be faster.
**Tiger Shipping and Educational Discount Problems** -- A few
people didn't receive their pre-ordered copies of Tiger when
promised, though some report being offered free software as
compensation. Also, Apple's educational discount seems to apply
only online, not in Apple retail stores, though there have been
some exceptions. (7 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2565>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/423>
**Tiger Safari Improvements** -- Safari 2.0 appears to handle
memory much better than previous versions. (2 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2566>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/424>
**Mail.app in Tiger** -- A reader runs into "fantastically
strange" behavior in the new version of Mail, amid discussion
of the program's new, altered interface. (3 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2567>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/425>
**iChat AV in Tiger** -- How well does iChat AV under Tiger work
with previous versions under Panther? One reader sees unexpected
behavior. (2 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2568>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/426>
**Nits related to Unix in Tiger** -- Tiger now handles extended
data information (resource forks) differently than earlier
versions, and other Unix specifics. (13 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2569>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/427>
**Tiger installation troubles** -- A reader encounters unusually
slow backup copying with Retrospect Express prior to installing
Tiger, and others note which approaches they took when upgrading
to the new operating system version. (5 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2571>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/429>
**Dashboard Usability** -- Does Dashboard's layer-based approach
work well, or is it a hindrance? (6 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2572>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/430>
$$
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