SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple exec Phil Schiller told the crowd here that he'll be showing three new things today, and he started by unveiling a new version of Apple's iLife application suite, iLife '09.

He began with a new iPhoto version that will include facial recognition and detection feature called Faces for tagging and sorting images of friends. It will also have a feature called Places that uses geo-tagging to display photos based on where they were taken on a map. Facebook and Flickr integration, as well.

Schiller made a subtle jab at Microsoft, saying that there's nothing as good on a computer as iLife, despite what some "people up north" might think. He's demoing the new iPhoto right now.

9:30 a.m.: New iMovie, with precision editor, advanced drag and drop, dynamic themes. Also video stabilization, where the program takes away jitters in home movies. Randy Ubillos, Apple's chief architect for video applications, is demonstrating the features now.

9:45 a.m.: New GarageBand feature: music lessons. Interactive, video-based guitar and piano lessons bundled for free. "Artist Lessons," with musicians such as John Fogerty, Norah Jones, Sting and others showing how to play simple versions of their famous songs, $4.99.

Price, timing: iLife will ship later this month, continuing to be free on New Macs, $99 for family pack.

9:50 a.m.: Second thing to be shown today will be new iWork. Schiller starts with new visual effects in Keynote. New iPhone app: Keynote remote, for controlling slides from the iPhone or iPod touch: 99 cents.

New version of the Pages word-processing program. (Here's where it gets interesting for Microsoft's Mac Business Unit, which makes Office for Macs.) Full-screen view to focus on work, for people distracted by items and windows on desktop. New outline feature.

New version of Numbers spreadsheet program. New function view, search for spreadsheet functions in simple way. Advanced charting options, mixed chart types, trend lines, and error bars -- the latter being a shout-out to the scientific crowd.

Schiller says iWork '09 ships today: $99 family pack; $49 with new Mac.

10:03 a.m.: Schiller announces beta of new collaboration service, iWork.com, which will let iWork users share documents online. Upload docs and notify other people, view documents online, add comments and notes, and download documents from others. On the first description, it sounds similar to Microsoft's Office Live Workspaces in concept. Schiller demonstrating it now.

"This is the beginning of a new service," Schiller said. Beta will be free, but ultimately fee-based. Beta starts today.

10:15 a.m.: Third thing for the day is a new 17" MacBook Pro. Schiller promises long battery life, up to 8 hours on a charge. But to make the battery bigger without taking up more total space, it won't be removable, according to a video being shown now. Similar concept to MacBook Air. Will be interesting to see how this goes over with Mac users.

New smart recharging process that wears less on the battery over time for longer lifespan. Starts shipping in late January, $2,799.

10:24 a.m.: Schiller offers "One Last Thing" --  iTunes. Three things new, he says. First new thing is price, more flexibility. Three pricing tiers for tracks -- 99 cents, 69 cents, and $1.29. More songs are going to be offered at 69 cents than at $1.29, he says. Starts in April.

Second thing, iTunes Plus, starting today, 8 million songs will be DRM free. Ultimately more than 10 million songs -- all songs in the iTunes library -- will be available without DRM, Schiller says.

Third thing, purchase music from iTunes on iPhone over 3G in addition to WiFi.

Schiller introduces Tony Bennett, who's now singing "The Best is Yet to Come," backed by his four-piece band.

That's it. Look for more follow-up coverage soon on the iWork.com collaboration suite, and Microsoft's response.