Before the '08 version, iMovie HD was a great editor with an easy-to-use interface in the classic Apple fashion.
Since iMovie '08, it has been utter garbage. The interface is barely more intuitable than a switchboard without labels.
Still waiting for Apple to wise up and return to making powerful yet elegantly simple applications. Ease of learning and use is what brought me to the Mac, but the lack of these elements is keeping me away from Apple's apps these days.
In my experience, and this happened many times over many years of use, imovie updates DESTROY past projects! Frustrating! I made a movie 2 months ago...wanted to revisit it but as I recently upgraded to Catalina I was forced to upgrade to iMovie 10.1.14. Missing clips and no solution (yet). Googling the problem shows SO MANY frustrated users with similar issues and spite in their posts. I DON'T TRUST iMOVIE!
It's dumbed down, but dumbed down in a way that's not even that intuitive/user friendly. Poor, amateur design which barely lets you have control over what you want to export; it's excruciating. Editing is clumsy and bumbling in many ways. Apple used to be aimed at people who do above the ordinary things, but unfortunately they left that pasture years ago in many ways, exemplified perfectly by the current incarnation of iMovie.
It's dumbed down, but dumbed down in a way that's not even that intuitive/user friendly. Poor, amateur design which barely lets you have control over what you want to export. Editing is clumsy and bumbling in many ways. Apple used to be aimed at people who do above the ordinary, nut unfortunately they left that pasture years ago in many ways, exemplified perfectly by the current incarnation of iMovie.
Great app :) 5 stars from me :) Really good video editor if you don't really need something as professional as Premiere or Final Cut Pro... but I think that even for professional use iMovie can be pretty good, if the project doesn't require some very advanced features or the level of tweaking something like the green screen videos that more professional video editors can have... you can still make a pretty good video with what iMovie offers :) and the UI is really nice and easy to use.
I should mention that you should update this page, since Apple made the iMovie free for all Mac users recently, so now it's freeware :)
BTW... I really don't understand why are some complaining in the comments that they find it "difficult" to use and/or giving the new version just one star and then writing how they like more some very old versions, even though those versions had less features and were in fact more complicated to use without actually doing a better job... I mean things like having to convert videos to that Intermediate format before editing them, which used to be very slow and used to consume lots and lots more space than an average .mp4 video does... and if you don't remember, iMovie 7 used to cause noticeable posterization of gradients if you were just importing pictures or .mp4 videos and relying on iMovie 7 to automatically convert them to that Intermediate format (if you didn't manually convert them first with something else to a format that iMovie 7 would accept without trying to convert it automatically)... Now, in newer versions of iMovie you don't have to convert stuff to that Intermediate format, you can just drag&drop mp4 videos directly to the timeline if you want and it's there... and you can start editing right away... and editing is not difficult too... the way someone edits in iMovie didn't change that much (some buttons were moved from being in the middle of the screen to the area above the video preview, instead of small icons for backgrounds and transitions under the video preview you now have buttons with text above the library area... some new features were added, the theme is different, but I don't see why would someone be confused by that), if you don't understand some of the new features very well, you don't have to use them all... Apple isn't forcing you to use each and every feature they add... you can still just split the video where you want (with CMD+B or by right clicking on it and choosing that option), delete the parts you don't need by clicking on them and pressing the backspace key, drag&drop some transitions that you like and export it... it's not difficult at all....
Objectively speaking, iMovie 10 is better than iMovie 7 or 8 and I gave you some of the reasons why... and there are also things in iMovie 10 that you just can't do with iMovie 7 or 8.
It's a good app and it deserves 5 stars in my opinion :)
I've been an Apple & Mac user for 30 years, "been there and done that" with most everything out there of any interest to me, and have rarely had a problem I couldn't solve. But iMovie has always frustrated me. While I'm sure it can do a lot of neat stuff, I still can't get the hang of it, and have problems with even fundamental steps, let alone advanced features. It's one of the least user-friendly apps I've encountered, and, AFAIK, there's no really good, thorough user manual, either by Apple, who should have written one (their support site is almost insultingly lightweight), nor by anyone else.
2 stars because it's probably very good (maybe a 4 or 5), but, thanks to Apple, very hard to use well (just barely above zero).
PS: I'd be thankful if anyone could point me to a good manual or tutorial.
We have a Mac Pro with iMovie 10.0.5 and Final Cut Pro v10.1.3 and my husband manages a popular HD YouTube channel using both of these Apple applications. Previous versions of iMovie were difficult to learn and certainly no where near as flexible as these latest releases. The uploaded videos are primarily produced in iMovie then enhanced using the additional features of FCP. We could do everything in FCP but find iMovie much easier. Tip: if you want HD movies on Vimeo or YouTube save to 1080p (FCP) or iTunes (iMovie) then copy off to your desktop and upload. Great quality. Take a look at today's upload: http://goo.gl/1kKupr and judge for yourself. BTW, the outro at the end of the video was produced using Final Cut Pro.
I have the most current version installed 10.0.3 but Desktop 6 shows my installed version as 9.0.9. Is there a way to fox this on my end? I know v5 gave us this option but I can't find it with v6.
I have done a fresh install of OS X 10.9 and then installed iLife 11. Apple say's you can upgrade to the newest version of iMovie and iPhoto. Yet when I try to update on the MAS I get an error about having the wrong account or the app being refunded. Apple needs to fix their crap.
Before the '08 version, iMovie HD was a great editor with an easy-to-use interface in the classic Apple fashion.
Since iMovie '08, it has been utter garbage. The interface is barely more intuitable than a switchboard without labels.
Still waiting for Apple to wise up and return to making powerful yet elegantly simple applications. Ease of learning and use is what brought me to the Mac, but the lack of these elements is keeping me away from Apple's apps these days.
Hmm, so over 1GB, mainly to get pushed higher-res stuff for Retina-display MBPs it seems...the new localizations are probably some of that, but I imagine the main thing is retina display support.
Anyone notice how much extra space it takes up after actual installation? Never having actually launched iMovie, I'd be a bit annoyed if it was just 1GB of extra high-res retina display stuff. If it's replacing lots of stuff and isn't anywhere near 1GB, that's much better.
Below find the direct download link to the non MAS version:
http://supportdownload.apple.com/download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/Mac_OS_X/downloads/041-5542.20120611.ME3tt/iMovie9.0.6Update.dmg
OS X 10.7.4 or later, I guess Snow Leopard clients are no good for Apple for Software stability and improvements. Apple is really leaving users behind!
iMovie 9.0.6 has been released as of today, now supports new MBP with Retina Display, adds a couple of localisations and improves general stability according to Apple.
iMovie is cool, but when you export your masterpiece you find out the output quality is soooo bad it makes it useless, yes and it's not just me, there's users all over the web talking about the same thing, iMovie creates awful banding on black areas of video footage. Apple is rotten!
Overall, this is a great update. However, the audio playback while scrubbing through a clip can get annoying at times, and when you open up the music panel, the navigation bar can get shifted to the left, so if you want to insert something at the end of the movie you must scroll down. Not all of the kinks are worked out, yet....
--
"App Store only"??? Does that mean those of us who have iMovie NOT via the App Store are going to be left behind / ignored? Is Apple forcing us to (re)purchase this app on the App Store in order to stay current? WTH?
It took me several YEARS to finally get comfortable with the "new" imovie- I loved imovie 6- but this latest version finally did it. I literally forced myself to give up comparing it to imovie 6 and sit down and learn to use it and now I must say it is really quite easy and it is hella fast on my MBP and attains warp speed on the imac. Now if they would just allow 3rd party transitions and effects all would again be brilliant in movie making land.
The download link on this page doesn't work for me. If you have the same problem, you can download the update directly from Apple at http://support.apple.com/kb/DL859.
I second the previous guys comment... iMovie is atrociously irritating to use compared to the good ole days of 4-6. MUCH more difficult and frustrating to accomplish the same thing. Thank God I almost never do video work anymore.
I never dawned on me how much Imovie had changed since I had Ilife 06. I have been trying to edit a movie I made of my family from this summer and it has been such a frustrating experience. For one thing, the removal of the multitrack and timeline just threw me. It also seems like I can't easily cut scenes like before. I am going to have to use something else abit more intuitive than this.
I have NEVER at any time been able to get iMovie to launch on my Core Duo Intel iMac 7,1 running Mac OSX Leopard 10.5.4. It ALWAYS crashes immediately at launch. I installed this most recent upgrade in the hope that, just maybe, it might solve the problem. But NO. Just the same. Can anyone tell me precisely what I need to do to get iMovie to launch successfully ? My computer is very new, but iMovie has NEVER launched.
When adding an .mp3 sound file to iWeb (iLife 08 version), I get prompted with the message that I should use iMovie's QuickTime web export to reduce the file size. Unfortunately, I can't find this feature or any documentation of this feature iMovie. Help anyone?
iMac G5 2.16 GHz Intel Duo 2GB ram. Version 7.0 iMovie was running fine. I let Software Update install the 7.0.1 update after which the app would not launch. Believe me, I tried everything and nothing worked except trashing the "upgraded" app and re-installing v7.0 form the iLife '08 disk. Anyone else encounter this? Love the app; hate the upgrade.
iMovie 08 is out of this world. So f...in intuitive and fast on my MBP. Love it! And as long as Apple lets you run iMovie HD as well please stop the whining. To bad the videofilters went away, but hopefully they will be back with Leopards CoreVideo. I'll bet we will see a free upgrade to iMovie once leopard is out.
The new iMovie 7.0 (from iLife '08) is simply awesome!
I've played with it and though I do admit that I miss some features, the new interface is simply one of the most intuitive I've seen in years. And this coming from an over-20-years Mac user.
The plug-ins and other features are definitely missed, but I'm sure its just a matter of time (and software updates) before they're taken care of.
If you hate the change, I completely sympathize, but I URGE you to give it a chance. Read the manuals and tutorials. Most of the features are there. And the workflow is a whole lot better. It's more storyboard-like. Just the way its done in Hollywood by the film directors, and with good reason: now you can concentrate and pick the best way to tell your story instead of just editing the film. iMovie now allows you to be more creative story-wise without compromising the editing part.
Give it time, it won't be much, and you'll discover that this new iMovie is really the one it should have been all along!
Cheers!
Use iMovie 6.0.3 and can NOT insert photos with Ken Burns effect. This IMovie just sound "thuing" and and nothing. And can NOT use themes too...I dont know whats wrong with iMovie, trying to re-install it, if this still happen, time to search FCP...
I have here a 1.8Ghz dual core (intel) macbook pro, with 2Gb of ram & the standard 80Gb internal drive supplemented by an external USB2 60Gb drive.
I have imovie HD on the machine.
today I made two attempts- one to the external drive & one to the internal- to digitize an hour's worth of high def dv footage in one lump. going to the external drive, the job crapped out after 15 minutes. trying again to the internal drive, it managed 47 minutes before the technicolor beachball arrived to spoil things. I wish I'd run spin-control before starting, but I wasn't expecting trouble; over here in the UK, HD-DV runs at the same bit-rate as standard def. it takes up the same amount of disc space. so the only difference between this job & the hour-long chunk of standard def I digitised without problems is what the display is doing.
hmm…
the honeymoon period is over. I'm off to get an intel-friendly version of FCP, see if I fare any better. if that doesn't work, I'm going back to sony-vegas until things calm down with HD.
as regards the other functionality of imovie... sound can't be edited separately, can't use any plug-ins, can't expand the waveform display... audio seems to be the poor relation, & I couldn't locate the constituent files of my project from outside of imovie (i.e. searching for the dv files yields nothing) to do any processing or editing in another app. the export/renders take much longer than I thought they would on what is effectively a dual-proc machine. my old dell dual 2Ghz with 1Gb of ram goes faster than this when rendering or transcoding from vegas timelines.
time to investigate FCP, I think.
Very nice application, I've been using it since version 2 and it has always worked great exept for version 5. It crashes almost every 30 minutes and sometimes even make the files corrupt! Apple please make a proper version again cause I'm tired of sending bug reports 4 times a day.
I don't know why everyone is always having problems with the iLife Apps, and everyone is always complaining about how thay can't do this, it won't do that. I have been using iLife since 1.0 and I have never had any problems with it, it has worked flawlessly since day one. I have made 2 feature films with iLife and never had a single problem. I'm running a 800mhz iMac G4, and I couln't be happyer with iLife!
Most helpful
How would you rate iMovie app?
Read 72 iMovie User Reviews