If you bought a Mac with OS X 10.7, Lion, preinstalled, it also came with iLife ’11. You’re probably used to updating your applications through Software Updates, however on your new system, you’re not getting updates for your iLife apps. Software Updates tells you that you have to update iPhoto from the App Store, but the App Store tells you there are no updates available.
The preinstalled version of iLife ’11 is the beginning of Apple’s gradual move toward using the App Store for all software updates. If you click on the App Store, then look under the Purchases tab, you will see iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand listed, along with a note that says you have to activate them with your Apple ID. Follow the prompts, log into the App Store using your Apple ID (or create one if you didn’t set one up earlier) and you will now be able to download iLife updates via the App Store.
The App Store doesn’t really make it all that obvious that you need to do that, so most people click on Updates, see nothing listed, then close the App Store. They don’t think to click on Purchases, since they haven’t purchased anything, but in fact that’s where they need to look.
Anything you download from the App Store, whether free or a paid app, is recorded on Apple’s servers. If you ever have to reload your operating system from scratch using the Recovery Partition, this only downloads Lion. The next step is to go to the App Store and get anything you have previously downloaded, including iLife ’11. However, if you hadn’t previously registered iLife, you may not be able to download it. Make sure you register it now so you don’t run into trouble later.
When Mac OS 10.8, Mountain Lion, comes out this summer, all Mac OS updates will be downloaded via the App Store, including drivers for printers and scanners. It makes sense to unify the update method—why have one way for applications and a different way for the operating system? This new “one stop shopping” will make things quicker and easier.