So much for the Stevenote hardware; what about the software? Well, as it turns out, there was a metric ton of it, and it looks pretty darn good, too. The obvious release, of course, was iLife '05; iLife debuted at last year's Stevenote, conspicuously stamped with the "'04" tag, so the only people not expecting an update to an '05 edition at this year's event were most likely the same people who were also shocked to discover that Steve wore a black mock turtleneck for the occasion, that Phil Schiller gave an onstage software demo, and that Earth has an atmosphere largely breathable by humans (for now). But is it worth shelling out $79 (up from $49 for '04; must be the weak dollar) for Apple's latest collection of digital lifestyle applications?

Well, like everything, that depends. There are certainly some compelling new features in each new iLife app, but whether or not they're compelling enough to part you from 79 bones is something you'll have to decide for yourself. For example, Steve says that 2005 is the Year of High-Definition Video; that's as may be, but unless you already own a high-def camcorder like that $3500 Sony rig that Steve was gushing about onstage (or you plan to buy one before iLife '06 ships), the new HD support in iMovie HD probably won't mean squat, so it's up to you whether the app's improved performance, enhanced tools and transitions, and new "Magic iMovie" mode (which sucks down your DV footage, automatically adds titles, transitions, and background music, and spits out a passably cool edited flick) are worth the price of admission.

Apply the same logic to the rest of the iLife apps and you'll have a pretty clear answer about whether or not you need to budget $79 for the upgrade: are you tired of iDVD's existing themes, and will OneStep DVD creation save you time? Will album folders, RAW support, slicker editing, way slicker slideshows, and new book-creation options make iPhoto that much more of a joy to use? Do you have an actual garage band that would justify GarageBand's new 8-track simultaneous recording, or does its new real-time musical notation make your heart sing? Only you can decide. Personally, we're still on the fence; if GarageBand had included the ability to use more than one tempo in a single song (and if Asteroid had shipped) it'd be a no-brainer for us, but heck, we'll probably wind up dropping the cash just for the funky new iPhoto features.

If you don't blow $79 on iLife '05, though, you won't have to scrounge up still more cash to spend on iWork '05-- yes, it exists, and by some strange coincidence, it's also $79. And just like the rumors said, it consists of Keynote 2 for all your presentation needs (trust us, if it's good enough to power a Stevenote, it's good enough for your quarterly sales presentation), and a brand spankin' new app called Pages, which Apple describes as word processor with an "incredible sense of style." More prosaically it might be described as a lowish-end page layout app with Apple's attention to detail and ease of use, but aside from the glitzy real-time text-flow while you drag graphics around the page and the built-in themes that make attractive layout a snap, it does appear to handle some slightly more advanced word processing issues like tables of contents, footnotes, and bibliographies, so it may well serve just fine even if you're cranking out a dissertation on Kant instead of a trifold color brochure for the swim team bake sale.

Clearly iWork isn't looking to take on Office anytime soon, of course; from a consumer perspective, right now it arguably trumps PowerPoint and gives Word a run for its money (depending entirely on how you use them), but from a business standpoint it's a little lacking. A spreadsheet app is nowhere in sight, and we're told that at least some cubicle-dwellers actually use Excel for crunching numbers instead of just making grids of text. As an AppleWorks replacement it looks pretty snazzy, but it does lack some of AppleWorks's functionality (so far), and we're a little disappointed that it apparently won't ship standard on any Macs, but if your productivity is limited mostly to text and visuals, by all means, give iWork a try. And hey, if nothing else, at least this means that Keynote got cheaper.