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Apple iPhoto '09

Of all the applications included with the upcoming iLife '09 multimedia suite, the updated iPhoto '09 looks the strongest.

Building on its predecessor, which introduced a feature called Events that let you organize photos around specific events, iPhoto '09 introduces Faces. The software uses face-detection and facial-recognition technology to automatically detect the faces of people in the pictures you take and determine which photos include the same faces. You can assign a name to a particular face, and iPhoto lets you quickly view all photos that include that person (or all photos including one or more of a group of people; for example, the members of your family).

Similarly, Places gives iPhoto users a new way to organize photos. The feature uses geotagging—GPS-based location-finding technology embedded in many newer digital cameras, as well as the iPhone—to determine locations; but anyone can manually add locations using iPhoto's database of place names for common vacation and travel spots. You can then browse photos by location using a map with pins showing where your photos are located.

iPhoto also adds integration with Facebook and Flickr, two popular social networking Web sites; includes new slideshow themes and the ability to export slideshows as videos for iTunes, iPods, or iPhones; and uses face detection technology to position faces in the middle of the screen during slideshows.

iPhoto '09 looks like reason enough to upgrade to the latest version of iLife.

[Available at the end of January as part of iLife '09, $79; free on new Macs.]