5.3. Third-Party Multimedia Tools

With its strong APIs, Apple has created a platform on which any dedicated company can build multimedia capture and editing tools. Many third-party tools are dedicated to specific tasks within the multimedia realm. Audio editing, video editing, and graphics creation are all covered to one degree or another by smaller tools.

The difficulty lies in creating a full suite of multimedia editing tools in which the tools are closely integrated, as they are in the Mac iLife suite. Although the individual tools stand well on their own, the model created by Apple is that these tools should work closely with one another, creating a tool set that's stronger as a whole than the sum of its individual pieces. This approach recognizes that handling media is often more than just a stand-alone task. When software makes it easy to move between several related tools, the time required for creation and editing is reduced.