Reviews can be a wonderful source of amusement and humour.

When you buy a Mac there's a bunch of software thrown in that includes various tools that one would normally download free for a Windows installation. This collection of software, known as iLife, includes photo processing, movie editing, music creation and web design software. Some of it is genuinely good & useful: iMovie is a very useful basic movie editor that's easy to use, Garage band works well for some people, though I've found it unintuitive and clunky. And some is just pretty badly thought through and cut down so that it doesn't offer essential, basic tools that might possibly take sales away from the flagship product. iWeb was one and iPhoto is another (a photo editor without a resize function, really??!).

Last year Apple decided to make their iLife apps free, except when they don't, and I was interested to see that although the latest version of iPhoto is listed under free apps, it actually carries a price of £10.49. Even though I have iPhoto installed. Eh?

While I was on the product page I glanced down at the reviews for the latest version and saw the gem I have (probably illegally) quoted here below:

It’s hard to find the words to adequately capture just how appalling this software is. I came excitedly to Macs from Windows believing that this is exactly the sort of thing OS X does best. Yet the scale of the ineptitude on display in the usability of this software is beyond my comprehension. I don’t have the time or energy or inclination to be specific. I would almost encourage you to download and use it just as a life experience, like being locked in a broken elevator: something you can discuss wide-eyed at dinner parties or with which to shock your children. Rest assured that on each occasion you need to import photos from your iPad, edit the content of events, print out a photo, find a picture on your drive, or almost anything else, you will be exposed to some fresh hell even after you thought there were surely no more obscenities to be found. Using this software is like discovering your car has been stolen, over and over again.

 I am grateful that I don't have to pay £10.49 and experience the sensations of car-theft on a repeated basis in order to attempt to edit my images. ;-)