It has been a busy couple of weeks for Apple as the company introduced the new MacBook Air, gave users a sneak peek of Mac OS X Lion and brought its video-calling service dubbed FaceTime to the Mac.

 

Cupertino-based Apple also unveiled iLife ’11, which is the latest iteration of its software suite for organising, editing, as well as publishing photos, movies and music. This suite is packaged with every new Mac, but will be available early in November as a R499 upgrade for existing users.

 

“iLife is widely regarded as the best suite of ‘Digital Life’ applications in the world, and iLife ’11 makes them even better,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iLife now makes it easier than ever to create books and letterpress cards, make amazing movie trailers from your personal videos and post them online, and make your band sound far better or teach yourself piano or guitar.”

 

This suite includes iPhoto ’11 which sports a new look, with full screen modes for Faces, Places and Events, as well as iMovie ’11 that makes it simpler to edit videos to showcase or post online. It also includes GarageBand ’11 also introduces two new ways to fix or change the timing of your recordings.

 

iLife ’11 will be available during early November for the suggested retail price of R499, from the ZA Store and Apple authorised resellers. There will also be an iLife ’11 Family Pack that includes five licenses, which will carry an RRP of R799 and a Mac Box Set which includes iLife ’11, iWork as well as Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard for R1 199.