Maybe I should say that Apple has transformed our way of life. Love them or hate them, Apple events are Big Deals in the tech world. They’re slickly executed and almost always introduce a new product that invariably elicits polarizing opinions on the internets. That’s the iLife '11 suite, which includes GarageBand, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and iWeb. A basic $129 bundle includes iLife '11, Mac OS X Snow Leopard and iWork '09. The Family Pack edition costs $179, but includes licenses for five computers instead of just one.

Making soundtracks became simpler, and homemade tracks could be improved with the provision of a comprehensive library of loops and sound effects. With iLife integration, these sounds are available to those using iMovie, either within that application or when a movie soundtrack is made in GarageBand. As for me, I like iMovie. It makes it easy to import, select, edit and export (in several formats) our clips; and the speed at which we can make such good-looking movies with transitions and effects removes the chore aspects. So I can make short movies, just a personal preference. Although, I have bought ipod touch video converter and dvd ripper.

Apple added features like "Magic GarageBand", a jamming feature, and more recently, lessons. The basic set was useful and there were lessons by famous artists, for example Sting, who would explain how they worked. However, in some areas of the world due to copyright issues, they were unavailable. Lessons have now been augmented by a feature that compares learner input with the music as it should be. It marks wrong notes and timing problems on the music notation.

Flex Time to fix errors while playing with a simple click and drag; and Groove Matching. A control at the left, activated when the mouse is held over it, activates this and selects the "Groove track". The recording is analysed and resultant output is much easier on the ears.

Soundtrack manipulation has also been improved in iMovie. This is now much easier to access in clips and this helped me immediately when one I was using had far lower volume than adjacent ones. A click and a slider (in an Inspector) did the job in a couple of seconds.

While professionals will go for Final Cut (which is due an update in the new year), most of us do not need such richly-featured software. Home users do not want (or need) the complexities of high-level video editing software. We have small, light cameras with video, or (in my case) the iPhone. I also have a new iPod touch on test that has HD video as well. Locally-favoured Nokia phones and others also have video-recording features.

iMovie (integrating with the other parts of iLife) makes it easy to import, select, edit and export (in several formats) our clips; and the speed at which we can make such good-looking movies with transitions and effects removes the chore aspects.

The feature I enjoy most in the latest iMovie is the way in which we can make a trailer of a movie in a couple of minutes. Indeed, the output is so effective that I plan to use this as means of sending out information from a conference in Singapore this week.

A few clips can be used to make a brief movie (the trailer), with titles and music (copyright-free) for uploading to a site. Also new is face-recognition software that finds clips that have people in them.

The iLife '11 suite has the components to handle most media types easily and produce satisfying results. It is part of the bundled software with all new Macs.