[rlmorel]

I just bought one of the Apple Books using iPhoto...it was beautiful! I could not believe how easy it was, just dropping my favorite photos into a folder, formatting them, typing some text in and clicking the button to purchase. My wife absolutely loved it (her birthday...)

I just found out how easy it is to post to my .mac account homepage (homepage.mac.com/rlmorel)from iPhoto-a REAL snap! By far, the easiest way to share pictures with people. (some of the pages are mangled-I was one of those people who had a bunch of itools accounts all linked together...<blush>...before Apple killed them, I just grabbed the pages and dumped them into my permanent account-that KIND of worked...)

I don't think Apple gets enough credit from the computer industry in general, or even mac users themselves. Sure, they could do a much better job advertising these thing, but even then the product is generally disparaged. I think they are perfect for my level, I can share photos and files without getting crazy, and the book I ordered...well you just gotta see one. Nearly everyone I showed it to, both Mac and PC, thought it was just TOO cool, and more than a few of the PC folks said "How can I do that...?"

How do others feel about these services and such? Anyone else have the same impressions?

[Eug]

Apple has the best computer industry advertising in the world. I think you're selling their PR department short. Considering they only have 3% market share, it's amazing how much press coverage they get.

As for iPhoto, I'm not a big fan of it overall, but I do love the web page export feature. However, when I made my two books with iPhoto, I was not hugely impressed. The formatting was nice when it worked, but it has limited formatting functions, it's not the most stable program in the world, and what you see on screen is not necessarily what you get in the final .pdf book. Hopefully iPhoto 2 (out Jan. 25 for free if you didn't already know), will address most of my gripes with the book feature and other features.

There are PC side programs such as Picasa and Adobe Photo Album which are iPhoto competitors. I have never used them, but I'm told iPhoto is the best overall design, while the others have distinctive features that iPhoto does not and vice versa of course.

[rlmorel]

Eug,
I should clarify-I do feel strongly that Apple has great advertising and product placement (my wife even elbows me in movies now...) But I do feel there must be some way they could advertise this kind of thing. I know, how the heck do you do it in 30 seconds?

I admit, I used a layout for the book I ordered that filled the whole page with a photo, no writing or commentary anywhere. So I cannot comment on how easy or hard it is to do a yearbook or storybook layout.

Points well taken...

[mrchin]

Originally posted by Eug:
As for iPhoto, I'm not a big fan of it overall, but I do love the web page export feature. However, when I made my two books with iPhoto, I was not hugely impressed. The formatting was nice when it worked, but it has limited formatting functions, it's not the most stable program in the world, and what you see on screen is not necessarily what you get in the final .pdf book. Hopefully iPhoto 2 (out Jan. 25 for free if you didn't already know), will address most of my gripes with the book feature and other features.

Maybe you've gotta wait for the full featured Final Photo Pro for $999 or Express.

[subego]

Uhh...

http://www.apple.com/switch/ads/gautamgodse.html

[alphasubzero949]

I was thinking the same thing. But I've never seen that ad on TV either.

[Eug]

Originally posted by mrchin:
Maybe you've gotta wait for the full featured Final Photo Pro for $999 or Express.

The "features" I was talking about mainly are:

1) Stability
2) Speed
3) True WYSIWYG. (Unknown to some, if you do something on screen it may not actually be the same in the final book. That would be very irritating.)
4) Ability to rearrange photos and not have the entire layout be destroyed. ie. Let's say you create a book with text the pictures. Then you remove one pic because you don't like it. ALL the other subsequent pages also are changed. Not very user friendly if you ask me.
5) Proper backup.

This is basic, not something you'd have to pay a thousand bucks for. Remember, all iPhoto is doing is very simple photo layout and then exporting a .pdf file which is sent to the printer directly.

Fortunately, Steve's Jan. 7 demo suggests that many of these beefs have already been addressed with iPhoto 2. I sure hope so.

Things I know which have been addressed:

1) Backup. Now it's a feature of iPhoto 2.
2) Formatting. There is low a "Lock Page" feature in iPhoto 2.

[mitchell_pgh]

I firmly believe that Apple hasn't gotten the word out about OS X and what it has to offer. People know there is a new OS, but they don't make the connection that it's not just another OS 8 to OS 9 bump.

They need a commercial showing all the different advantages, show off aqua, the command line, Office, iMovie, iTunes etc.

Testimonials are just getting silly...

[Parky]

Apple Software = Very Good
Apple Hardware = Poor