iLife forum: I was sold an ibook without ilife

but this was an old laptop, iBooks went away a while ago, and it is possible that this machine had been reformatted and OS X installed on it.

OS X does NOT contain the iLife suite, that would have been included on the G4 restore disks. I'm guessing you did not get any disks at all with this machine.

Old used machine, not an Apple Authorized Dealer and maybe this store did not have a copy of iLife of the vintage you would have got had you purchased the machine new.
I agree with the store that you should have noted the missing software, after all, that appears to have been one of the reasons you purchased the machine in the first place.

Unless they sold it as a new machine, I really do not think you have much of a chance here. I do think that the store, if it actually had an old copy of iLife, could, as a sign of goodwill, be persuaded to put it on your machine.
But, had you purchased this from Goodwill, and there are a few Macs available from them, would you go back there and demand iLife on the machine?

P

Sounds like your young kid there is preparing to work for Time Warner Cable, Verizon, or Comcast cable. He's all set to "blame the victim."

Your absolute best solution is to purchase the software from Apple. That will get you iPhoto as well as the other iLife applications that you are missing. There are reputable dealers out there that do have legacy Apple software, like this one: http://store.retrosoftware.net/16245.html

You can also complain to the store's owner, which may not ever have received the iLife installation disks when they took in the used iBook for resale. Every Mac I have had that I have sold, I have installed just the operating system on and let the computer go.

I received no OS discs when I purchased to reformat.

No, I didn't bother to go back and ask. I was in the middle of a move and too many things on my plate. The kid told me too much time had passed when I called 6 weeks after purchase, immediately after arriving back in town. I knew he wouldn't offer to help months later. But thanks for asking.

Warning about Apple Palace in West LA.