Just what is Apple’s iLife good for? That consideration lies at the heart of the objections raised about the major change in the focus of iMovie ’08.

The previous edition, iMovie HD, seemed on the verge of becoming a semi-professional movie editing application in some respects. There were even plugins available to enhance its basic functionality.

With the new version, a lot of that has vanished, along with features that many took for granted, such as the traditional movie-editing timeline and more sophisticated audio production tools. Some called it a dumbing down of the application, in order to cater to today’s YouTube fans. That’s an implied insult, of course, but that’s not the real issue at stake here.

Now when Steve Jobs talked about the changes, he told the story of an Apple software engineer coming up with the basic idea for a new iMovie application while on vacation. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s nothing more than a metaphor for the need to alter the focus of iMovie because it was moving far away from its original goal, which was to be a simple consumer video editing tool.

The conventional wisdom has it that Apple provided the previous version of iMovie because it knew it had a dog on its hands, and hoped to satisfy disappointed customers that way. But that may not be the point.

To understand the logic behind iMovie’s vast changes, you may just want to take a fresh look at the rest of the iLife ’08 suite just to see how they function and relate to each other.

Take iPhoto. Now it’s perfectly true that you can do superlative work in Adobe Photoshop, but the best of its features require talent and a steep learning curve. But if you just like to take family photos with your digital camera, importing it into iPhoto is a snap — no pun intended. If there’s an exposure problem, a fast click of the Quick Enhance button and perhaps a few other tweaks will improve matters immeasurably in a matter of seconds. In addition, the other basic tasks you need to accomplish, such as emailing, printing and even creating a professional-looking photo album, are relatively simple.

In other words, it’s a tool for the consumer who just wants to get things done quickly and easily. You don’t need the sophisticated refinements of which an application such as Photoshop is capable.

Take a tour through the rest of the iLife applications, particularly iWeb, and you’ll see the same aura of easy familiarity, all accomplished without much of a learning curve, and usually without visiting the Help menus.

But as many have said about iMovie HD, it wasn’t quite as accessible. Sure you could do some great work in it, and sometimes approach professional caliber, but the ease-of-use may have been one factor that was lost as the application became more feature-laden.

The more I read about iMovie ’08, the more I am convinced that Apple’s software architects may have a point. What they’ve come up with is a clever tool for people who just want to grab some footage, add a title, some transitions and export it as a QuickTime movie or a YouTube video. This can all be accomplished in minutes without having to learn any new skills. Most everything seems to run smoothly, considering the application’s huge system requirements.

Indeed, to run iMovie ’08, you need “a Mac with an Intel processor, a Power Mac G5 (dual 2.0GHz or faster), or an iMac G5 (1.9GHz or faster).”

Alas, this excludes most Macs built more than two years ago, and some that are even more recent. That’s not a casual system requirement, and it also means that many of those who fall into the new iMovie’s prime audience won’t be able to install it. You’ll be forced to stick with the previous version, which is being offered as a free download to owners of iLife ’08.

Unlike the other applications in the suite, iMovie ’08 is basically a 1.0 version, despite bearing a 7.x designation. This means that there are going to be bugs, and perhaps some of the features that are present are not as refined as they could be. Certainly, the existing line-up of iMovie plugins are non-functional, but that doesn’t mean that Apple isn’t going to provide hooks for them to be upgraded.

As you might expect, some people are already finding ways to perform the functions seemingly removed from iMovie in a different fashion. You can, for example, do all your audio editing in GarageBand, and then bring that into iMovie to merge with your footage.

Over time, I suppose other features will be added that will bring the new iMovie, at least in its own way, closer in capabilities to its predecessor. On the other hand, if you look at Apple’s goals in changing direction here, it appears they may have succeeded, even if some people ended up unhappy with the result.

Whenever I write a column of this sort, I wonder if some of those spammers might just want to make a concerted effort to go after me, just to show “that old so and so” how powerful they really are. But it’s a casual thought, and not an active part of any paranoiac instincts. At least I hope not.

At the same time, I have noticed that the amount of spam that clutters my mailbox these days is less than it used to be, but I don’t think people are less vulnerable. Instead, I believe the steps I’ve taken have improved the situation over the past few months to a point where the problem has become more and more manageable.

Understand, however, that you don’t want to live under the illusion that it’ll go away, any more than computer viruses (even if they haven’t really hurt the Mac thus far), phishing scams, or even the criminal who wants to hijack your car or break into your home.

You see, it’s a dangerous world out there, but there are some ways you can at least insulate yourself a little from the worst of the online offenders who ache to fill your mailbox with unsavory schemes for home-based businesses, penny stocks, porn, and all the rest. Or even hijack your computer.

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.

You know it makes an awful lot of sense. When you are price shopping for a new car, you’ll check off the options list and see that both have similarly powerful six-cylinder engines, air conditioning, perhaps a navigation system, satellite radio and so on and so forth.

At the end of the process, you tally up the sticker price, or whatever the dealer gives you as his “final offer,” and see where you stand. I’m assuming here that we’re talking about two similar makes, such as a Honda Accord and a Toyota Camry, and you’re making the final decision on price alone.

But what if one dealer said he could save you a few hundred by giving you the four-cylinder version, that changes the basis for comparison, and it’s up to you to weigh slightly better fuel economy against additional power.

You cannot, however, say the two vehicles are comparably equipped.

Yet when I made the standard argument about Mac versus PC pricing, using comparable features as the means for calculating the cost, that’s exactly the stunt some of you readers tried to pull on me. You began to argue that the Dell I used for a price match against a Mac mini could function almost as well with a cheaper AMD processor, and did I really need gigabit Ethernet, a high-end version of Windows, digital life apps, a remote control and all the rest?

Well, maybe you don’t. That’s a decision you have to make, but Apple doesn’t play that game. They provide a small number of models, with fairly limited configuration options, except, perhaps, for the Mac Pro. By unifying the manufacturing structure in this fashion, they can buy higher quantities of each part, and earn more money. You get a fair price for the Apple product you buy, and they make a fair profit that keeps their employees and stockholders happy.

Nothing wrong with that, right?

Yes, but every single time I criticize the bogus claim that the Mac costs more than a comparably-equipped PC, I am attacked because Apple doesn’t cripple its products.

Understand, however, I am not saying Apple shouldn’t let you downgrade your Mac if that’s what you want. However, in a consumer environment, that puts you on an unequal footing. Apple’s own applications assume a minimum configuration, and if people are buying Macs with all different network speeds, loads of additional processor configurations, RAM and all the rest, they end up with the situation that exists today with Microsoft and Windows, and that’s a greater danger of incompatibilities of one sort or another.

So it makes sense, from Apple’s point of view, to have locked down systems with a limited number of configuration choices.

On the other hand, it would make perfect sense to provide a “dumbed down” version for business users, who may not require AirPort, Bluetooth, remote controls, or even the iLife applications. That could reduce the price by, say, $100 or so, which may not mean much to you and me, but certainly can account for a lot to a company that’s ordering 10,000 units. You see, that’s where the PC box makers have their biggest sales advantage over Apple. They have no problem configuring commodity hardware in this fashion. That’s probably where the majority of their profits come from. They certainly don’t make much on the $399 PC bundle you buy at Wal-Mart.

Yes, it makes perfect sense, but not to Apple, which has no enterprise-based plan of that sort. If a business wants Macs, they have to choose from among the regular models. You could argue until you’re blue in the face for a different marketing scheme, but it probably won’t come from Apple. I have argued, for example, for a mid-range minitower, with iMac power and some limited expansion options, such as room for a second hard drive, replaceable graphics card, and an extra slot for other sorts of add-ons, such as a second network port or a hardware RAID installation.

I think that there has long been room in Apple’s product mix for such a model, just as some of you suggest that Apple needs to allow you to shed unwanted features to reduce the price. But I also try to be the realistic Virgo, which means I do not really expect anything of this sort to happen.

Consider that Apple’s stock is soaring once again, with sales continuing to rise, and all eyes are now on the expected revision to the iPod that’s due next week.

In that climate, we can talk all we want, but let’s not forget that opinions are a dime a dozen. Or is that now fifty cents because of inflation?

So I’m reading a CNET review of the high-end Mac Mini, recently revised to include a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive. The unsung hero of the Mac line, CNET found ways to malign it, some accurate and some downright misleading.

Indeed, you have to put this machine into perspective. It’s just an entry-level computer, with no pretense of offering a fat, fast hard drive, or a speedy graphics card for gaming. But both are big deals to CNET’s writers and editors, who seem to believe that such features are would be required by buyers of such a box, and they therefore downgrade the mini as a result.

Another major negative is that CNET feels the competition from Dell and HP offers better pricing for the same features? But do they?

Although Dell has supposedly simplified its pricing and option structure, CNET doesn’t seem to understand how to do a proper comparison. For example, they used Dell Inspiron 530s and 531s in their price-checking attempts, but stuck with models equipped with cheaper AMD processors rather than the versions that include an Intel Core 2 Duo, so as to match the Mac mini. What’s more, the Dells are preloaded with Windows Vista Basic, which is no better than XP, and certainly no match for Mac OS X, so I went with Vista Ultimate.

I thus rechecked and built a 530s and attempted to match it as closely as possible to the $799 version of the Mac mini, which means no display, keyboard or mouse, and I also deleted the modem and, to keep the price as low as possible, speakers.

Of course, this process isn’t always so easy. For example, the Dell comes with Integrated 10/100 Ethernet, and there is no Wi-Fi option in the option list that I consulted. I was, however, able to add FireWire, and the closest equivalent I could locate to Apple’s iLife ’08 software in the Windows arsenal.

The price I arrived at was $797. Now maybe Dell has discount coupons or special rebates that would lower the price, but adding the speedier Internet option and even 802.11g Wi-Fi would, together, add roughly $50 to the purchase price if they were readily available. Of course, they are, if you spend a little more time at Dell’s site or just go into your local consumer electronics outlet and check around.

To be fair, the Dell offers a much larger hard drive: 320GB, compared to 120GB on the Mac mini. You can get a 160GB drive for the latter from Apple, but you’d do better consulting third party options for something more robust.

By the way, I did not add the annual cost of providing malware protection on the Windows box. That would be roughly $50 for every year you own it, unless you opt for freeware applications instead, and that’s something the average user should be really cautious about, without some outside help.

In the end, it’s clear to me that CNET’s claim that the competition offers more features “at a better price” is just not true. But they won’t admit that.

If this happened only on occasion, I wouldn’t object, but they seem to go overboard looking for negatives in their reviews of Apple products. In this case, I cannot believe the writer was unaware of the shortcomings of the price comparison, unless the editors intervened and insisted that it be done that way. Either way, this review, while superficially favorable, once again tells lies about Apple’s prices as compared to other PC makers.

The other flaw is far more serious than whether the Mac mini costs a little more or a little less than a similarly-built PC. You see, CNET — and even Consumer Reports — evaluate the Mac and the PC as if they were the same.

Even Microsoft would admit that Windows and the Mac OS, though superficially similar, reside in different environments. I think even a fan of the former would admit that without hesitation, so putting them in the same sandbox is just not fair to either.

I suppose one could attack CNET on a number of grounds for continuing to perpetuate lies in their Mac coverage. Without actually knowing the current editors, however, I can only suggest they might want to write this drivel to look different and more hard-hitting as compared to other tech outlets that routinely give Apple much higher grades for their products.

Of all the possibilities, that’s the most charitable answer and I’ll stick with it for now. However, in light of CNET’s acquisition of MacFixIt, I do hope that things will soon take a big turn in a positive direction.