Since its introduction in 2003, the iLife suite has become an integral part of Apple's sales pitch for the Mac platform. And as the Mac has evolved, the suite's makeup has also changed with the times. iTunes has more or less been made a permanent part of Mac OS X, and so is no longer in the collection. iWeb was added in iLife '06 for creating simple, template-based websites. And iDVD has been relegated to a quaint anachronism as more and more video is shared and streamed online. (Indeed, because iDVD hasn't received any significant updates since iLife '06—and none at all since iLife '08—we have not reviewed it here.)

In the suite's 2009 incarnation, all of the iLife apps add numerous small interface tweaks (except for, again, iLife's appendix, iDVD). And while the apps continue to integrate with Apple's MobileMe (n?e .Mac) service, there is also added integration with other online services, such as Facebook and Flickr. All told, the individual apps in iLife continue to make some rather amazing capabilities—sorting and editing thousands of digital images, editing digital video into watchable form, creating and editing great looking websites, or creating (or learning to create) music—accessible to mere mortals. This series of reviews will walk you through the suite, starting with the latest versions of iPhoto and iMovie, and tell you what improved, what stayed the same, and whether you should upgrade.

Software iLife '09 Publisher Apple, Inc. Price $79 for single user, $99 for 5-user Family Pack Includes iPhoto 8.0, iMovie 8.0, iWeb 3.0, GarageBand 5.0, iDVD 7.0.3 System Requirements Mac OS X 10.5.6 Leopard, 1 GB RAM recommended, DVD drive for installation and iDVD

As far as major features improvements, both iPhoto '09 and iMovie '09 are the stars of the collection with the flashiest updates. Contributing Writer Chris Foresman took both apps for a spin, putting iPhoto's Faces and Places through its paces. Assistant Editor David Chartier took the updated iWeb '09 for a spin, wringing the most out of its new Widgets and FTP publishing features. And Infinite Loop contributer Jeff Smykil poked and prodded at GarageBand '09. Though he was critical of GarageBand's kitchen-sink approach to music, he did find some things to like in its new Magic GarageBand, Music Lessons, and amp and effects modeling.

Like previous versions of iLife, a copy of the suite is installed on all new Macs. Users with previous versions of iLife can upgrade for the same price as anyone else: $79. Apple also offers the $99 Family Pack, which is licensed to install on five machines in the same household. Or, if you want the latest iLife and iWork updates, but are still chooglin' along with Tiger, you can get the $169 Mac Box Set, which includes both suites as well as the necessary upgrade to Leopard.

This first installment of our iLife '09 review will cover iPhoto and iMovie, with the iWeb and GarageBand reviews to follow shortly.

iPhoto '09

iPhoto '09 doesn't present a radical departure from its '08 predecessor; much of the UI and functionality is nearly identical, with many small refinements here and there. But the new version does boast one major new feature, Faces, which I spent a lot of time experimenting with. In addition to Faces, iPhoto will also organize images by Places. The new version also makes it easy to upload albums to Flickr and Facebook as well as MobileMe, and it offers some nice options for slideshows (though not everyone will be able to take advantage of these) and making photo books.

Faces

By far the biggest deal in iPhoto '09 is the new Faces feature. Like Events in iPhoto '08, Faces adds a new logical way to organize your photos. Originally all photos in iPhoto were arranged by date. Then Apple added the concept of Rolls—analogous to a film roll, but not limited to 24 or 36 images. The Rolls feature allowed a more granular arrangement by import session, and each import could be further subdivided into separate rolls. Then Apple added Events, which refined the roll concept to arrange pictures logically by their associated event.

Faces is a little different, though. Suppose you want to see all photos of Aunt Martha, regardless of roll or event? Faces will do just that. It uses a facial recognition algorithm, along with some identifying on your part, to sort all your images by who's in them.

This is the new Faces view in iPhoto '09.

Each time you import new photos, iPhoto '09 analyzes each image to try to automatically identify faces. The quality of the automatic recognition is mixed, however. It can identify faces that are blurry, very small, or partially obscured. But I found that the algorithm tended to be most accurate when heads are turned mostly toward the camera, upright (i.e. not tilted) and take up less than half the frame. Unfortunately, the images in my library have plenty of faces in profile, tilted compositions, and faces that fill the frame. And occasionally, the algorithm identified something as a face that was simply a texture or pattern or other non-face detail.

Here I marked the first image of The Woz. Now his mug is in my Faces database.

Now iPhoto can start to identify images that it "thinks" has Woz in it.

While flipping through images in the "Name" mode, you'll see the areas that iPhoto has identified as a face. When you see a face that's not identified, just click "Add Missing Face." This gives you a box you can move and resize to cover the face. I discovered that the box normally resizes from the center, which some people may find awkward—if so, hold down the Option key while dragging a corner to resize from the corners.

To mark a face that wasn't caught by the automated recognition, click "Add missing face" and adjust the box to fit the face.

Once a face is marked, either automatically or manually, you'll most likely see a tag that says, "unknown face." As you begin to tag people with a name, you might see "Is this so-and-so?" with a check or an 'x'. Just click the check if iPhoto guessed right, or the 'x' if it's wrong. If there is just one face, and iPhoto has picked the right name, you can hit "enter" and move on. Otherwise, click in the tag and type in the name. As you add names to your list, they'll begin to auto-complete while typing. The interface makes what can be a pretty laborious task fairly quick—as long as you take a lot of "normal" pictures.