Next iteration of iLife gone Golden Master, coming before Leopard?

Sources informed MacScoop that the development of the next iteration of iLife has reached the Golden Master phase. The consumer software suite could ship before the release of Leopard, which is now slated for October.

The development of the new iLife suite was actually finished a few weeks ago and there's nothing preventing Apple from releasing it during the summer or early September, sources told MacScoop.

Sources also confirmed that the new suite will run on both Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) and Leopard (10.5) operating systems. Previous iterations of iLife have always supported the last two versions of Mac OS X.

The main challenge Apple may face in releasing the iLife upgrade sooner than October is the that Leopard isn't finished yet. The company's iLife development team may have to work on an update to make the new version work effectively with the final version of Leopard.

A question that remains unanswered is whether Apple has chosen to use iLife '07 or iLife '08 for suite's branding or another version scheme altogether. With a release targeted after the mid year, it now looks a bit late for an "07" branding as this would sound out-dated within a few months after release

Sources didn't provide any precise release timeframe for the new iLife suite but some Internet reports recently speculated on the revamp of the iMac line-up for this summer and we think a release of the next iteration of iLife alongside the new iMac line-up would definitely make sense.

With most of the media currently focused exclusively on the iPhone's recent launch, Apple will probably wait at least the second or third week of July before making any Mac-related announcement. Considering the month of August is not the best timing for a product release, missing a July release would probably mean delaying it to late August or even September.