The rumor mill says that iLife will be updated next month, going to 64-bit, introducing a “mystery” application and dropping iDVD.
It won’t be surprising if Apple drops iDVD, but it will be disappointing. Apple — or at least Steve Jobs — seem determined to phase out CD and DVD support, hoping Apple users will go completely digital. And, no doubt, turn to MobileMe, iTunes and other Apple services for buying and storing all their content.
The rumor mill also says that Apple will continue to offer iDVD as a download. I hope that’s true. And I hope that the app will continue to be updated as Mac OS X is updated. But I suspect it will simply be allowed to languish a la iMovie HD — which, I maintain, was still lots better than the version of iMovie that now ships with iLife.
But the writing has been on the wall for awhile. When Apple introduced iLife ’09, iDVD was barely mentioned. It wasn’t updated and received no new themes.
— Dennis Sellers