Just picked up iLife '09 today and installed it both on my MacBook Pro and MacBook. I haven't had a chance yet to play with all the new features, but as I do I'll post my initial thoughts here.


Installation:
- The install went went fine initially on my MacBook Pro. Took about 30 minutes and required a reboot.
- On the MacBook the install failed saying that it could not find a product to install. I rebooted and tried again, but got the same error. I then remembered that Apple release some updates to iLife '08 the other day. I ran software update and installed what was available. After another reboot the install proceeded without error. Again it took about 30 minutes and required a reboot.

iPhoto:
- The first app I fired up was iPhoto. Initially it ask to upgrade your library. You also need to let iPhoto geo-tag your photos (if that information is available). Also it take a while for iPhoto to catalog all the faces it finds in your pictures for facial recognition later.
- There are two new menu items... Faces and Places. Places brings up a map and shows pins where photos have been taken. For me it was just pictures taken on my iPhone, since it's the only camera with geo-tagging built in. The only problem I noticed was when zoomed in photos can be spread out on the map, even when taken in the same place. For example some pictures I know were taken at my condo show up as four or five pins in the local area. Now I know this is caused by the inaccuracy of GPS, but I hope I find a way to group all this pics together.
- Faces is perhaps the most fun. When you open a photo you now have a 'Name' button on the bottom at brings up a box around each persons face. You then type in the name and click done. Then when you go back to the Faces area those people appear along with suggestions of other photos that may contain them. For these photos you click on "confirm name" button and tag each suggested photo as either being correct or incorrect. The application seems to learn and become more accurate as more photos are tagged. This is a very cool feature and a great new way to organize photos.

Next up iMovie...