JBSSM  Although I cannot abide to praise the ease of use of iPhoto, the truth is that Apple doesn't seem to care for some clients at all.

This software is out for almost 6 months, and so is the Panasonic Lumix 3 camera which is a fairly popular camera, still, after all this time and after 2 updates, still no support for RAW mode in this camera.

I mean, is it that difficult to add a library to the program that is already made and that gives the desired functionality?

Adobe did it in a bit more than 1 month in their software ... Apple is making us wait for more than 6 months.

Also, as interesting and innovative as the face recognition may seem, the truth is that is practically always wrong. All the faces need manual checking and tagging.  
(Version 8.0.2)

THEOPH  After updating to iPhoto 8.1, I can no longer sync my iPhone and Apple TV through iTunes. One must deselect Photo syncing in ITunes to resume the syncing function. Of course you don't sync your Photos anymore.   
(Version 8.1)

ANDY HEWITT  As much as I've always liked iPhoto, and have used it for may generations now, the '09 version isn't working well for me.

For the cost of iLife, it's undoubtedly a very good value media manager, and is still far better than either Picasa or Expressions. It's also worth remembering that this is a 'consumer' level application, not a Pro app, so in the right context it is one of the best image managers there is. (I also think it's unfair to knock down iPhoto for poor Raw format support - this is part of the OS, and affects anything that uses Apple Raw support, including Aperture).

However, there are some niggles for me. My biggest is very poor editing performance with Raw images. I use Olympus E510 pics, at about 10MB each, and editing them in iPhoto is actually pretty painful. If I do some quick adjustments, and move to the next image, iPhoto will eventually pause, sometimes for as much as two minutes. I can alleviate this by watching my iStat menu for processor usage, and waiting until it drops before moving on - this still takes a good 20 seconds per image though.

Fortunately I'm not a Pro, so it isn't critical.

As others have mentioned, the 'Faces' feature isn't quite there yet, and it seems to work less well as more faces are added. I'd like a function to disable the features altogether.  
(Version 8.0.3)

ODYSSEUS  Beware of the update to iPhoto 8.0.3. After launch, it deleted all of my MobileMe photo galleries!  
(Version 8.0.3)

ISCREAM  Photo syncing with iPhone no longer works...  
(Version 8.1.1)

STEVE R  I updated to the latest 8.0.3 today, midway through working on a slideshow project. Prior to updating I had successfully exported several versions of my project using the same non-DRM-protected mp3 file. After updating, my slideshow has no exported sound. None. I tried AAC, still no sound. Restarted the computer, no sound. Even tried the built in themes, no sound on the exported file. Deleted the ~.plist, restarted the computer, iPhoto opens like new (all libraries intact) but once again, no sound on the exported slideshow.

Frustrating. Tomorrow I pull out my disks and reinstall software, not letting iPhoto update to see if there is any joy in mudville.

iMac 24" 2.8GHz/4GB RAM

10.5.7  
(Version 8.0.3)

THEGOODGUY  ugh, this program is so bloated and slow and im on an iMac G5 running at 2 ghz! Honestly, i'd be happy with less stupid greeting card and .mac fixes that nobody uses and more stability/speed improvements because how it is right now is unacceptable for the money spent. also, albums/events are great.. but i like viewing all my pictures at once like it used to be.. anyone know how to do that? or did apple screw that up too?   
(Version 7.1)

LEOOFBORG  This iteration of iPhoto, while having a number of new 'gee whiz' features -- also suffers from the great 'dumbing down' that other users are complaining about with iMovie and iDVD.

My gripes are here:

http://expatleo.wordpress.com/2007/08/28/iphoto-7-drops-n-up-printing-as-a-feature-dumb/

I also list the workarounds to get around this so-called 'enhancement'.

C'mon Apple. Bring back N-Up and real contact sheets.

I would give iPhoto 6 4.5 stars, and at this point recommend it over iPhoto 7.0x for at least the next couple months.  
(Version 7.0.2)

MDAMLI  Sigh... Events still do not appear in Apple TV or Front Row. Have to make albums, which DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF EVENTS... >.  
(Version 7.0.2)

MACUPDATE ADMIN  From MacInTouch.com:

"The folks at Unsanity may finally have unravelled the mystery of randomly-disastrous Apple software updates:

Shock and Awe: How Installing Apple's Updates can Render Your Mac Unbootable and How You Can Prevent it

... When you see the "Optimizing System Performance" phase of a software update, Mac OS X is really updating prebinding. Updating prebinding has a very, very nasty bug in it (look at _dyld_update_prebinding). If multiple processes are updating prebinding at the same time, then it is possible for a system file to be completely zero'd out. Basically, all data in the file is deleted and it is replaced with nothing. This bug is usually triggered when updating Mac OS X and every update to Mac OS X has the potential to render your system unbootable depending on if the "right" file is deleted or not. It's triggered during the "Optimizing System Performance" phase of installing an update. This phase is actually just running update_prebinding. If you launch an application that links to libraries that are not yet prebound, there is a chance one of those files will be zero'd out as dyld automatically redoes the prebinding on that file.

I've been tracking this particular bug for about 18 months now. Most of the real "random" failures reported on various Mac OS X "troubleshooting" sites after a user has installed an Apple software update are actually manifestations of this bug. By real I mean not imagined problems or ones that have been there for a very long time but the user is just now noticing it and artificially connecting the cause to the recent update (it's called Pareidolia). Yes, this nasty prebinding bug has been reported to Apple and yes, it is 100% reproducible if you want to reproduce it.

Every single time you install an update to Mac OS X whether it be an iTunes update, a QuickTime update, an update for daylight saving time, a security update, an Airport update, or an actual Mac OS X update, you can be hit by this bug. In order to prevent yourself from being smacked in the face by this bug, follow this simple rule: When "Optimize System Performance" appears during the update process do not touch your computer and definitely do not launch any applications. Just back away from your computer box as if it were a swarm of bees. Yes, it does mean that if you install the Mac OS X 10.4.9 update, you may get hit by the bug."  
(Version 6.0.6)