If you’ve got iPhoto and a device with iOS 4, then be prepared to see some new features in your Photos application. While I’m sure it has been mentioned in one of the Apple keynotes, events, albums, faces and places are now selectable options. Unfortunately, these probably require iPhoto (especially faces), but maybe there’s some hope for Windows users, at the very least, they’ll get albums and places (how do Windows users sync photos anyway?). Screenshots of the new Photos application, after the jump. Forgive the edits of names and places I deem sensitive).

Albums

Probably the most unchanged in the bunch. This should look familiar to most iOS users.

Events

You know, I couldn’t remember if I had sync’ed events in the past. Did iOS 3 have this functionality? Did they just show up as albums? Regardless, this is almost a carbon copy of Albums, except… they are events. Events, if you aren’t aware, are automatically generated based on the content of the complete photo import, and the time they were taken. It was implemented as a feature in iPhoto to make organization easier.

Faces

Oh yes, iPhoto will be required for this one. Using the auto-detecting face recognition, people are sorted into albums of their own. I’m not totally sure how this is useful, unless you have a lot of friends that like to look at themselves. Still, it’s neat to see how organized everything is. If you know you have a photo of a friend, then it’d be a snap to jump right to it.

Places

Probably the biggest “check this out” feature. If your photos are geo-tagged, then they will show up on a map, just like in iPhoto. This feature definitely requires network connectivity to download the Google Map. The area is pinch zoomable for more precision. Pushpins will glide into position based on zoom level, the farther zoomed out, the more they clump together. Photos taken from a whole city, would be represented by one pin. As you move in, they spread out to represent neighborhoods, then individual streets, then finally their actual location. Photos taken on the device do not show up here automatically. They must be synced to your computer, then synced back – bummer.

So that’s all for this taste. I hope to show off a few more new little things as the information gets to me.