[Jon Seff]

leftnotracks said:

I'll just remove my foot from my mouth long enought to say, "Oops, by mad. Sorry MW." Back to eating foot.

Let us never speak of it again :D

[TexasAg03]

No, it has not. You could access the web albums and upload photos, but the standalone application was not available.

[Photonerd]

I'm surprised they did this as it's nowhere near as good as iPhoto. Nice gesture but barely relevant.

[GregoriusM]

I've only spent a short time with it, but saying it is not as good as iPhoto is misleading. It does things iPhoto doesn't, and does other things in ways that I prefer. I will use both programs.

[Bobapple]

The app was at the end of the link above, installed without incident, has some really nice features - Apple will be playing catchup with iPhoto, maybe even tomorrow, if that's their focus this year at Macworld.

[webraider]

KPO said:

It's nice to see this application available. That was one program I miss from Windows, and one less reason to run Fusion or Parallels. Unlike iPhoto, Picasa keeps your picture files right where they are and doesn't create a gargantuan file. Windows port or not, Picasa's release might force Apple to make some improvements to iPhoto.

I agree. I have never used picasa, but I have a friend who just converted to Mac from windows and He really wanted a way to do collages. I told him to try the updater which he did and although he liked iPhoto, he missed collages. He will be glad this is here and I like the way that it doesn't compete with iPhoto but compliments it.

[Bobapple]

Nah, it competes - in many respects this is much nicer than iPhoto (and I'm an iPhoto fan). I really like the accessibility to the files and the editing suite is excellent. I used to edit almost exclusively with Photoshop, until iPhoto improved - I currently do most of my editing in iPhoto. But that will likely change as I get used to Picasa.
I also opted for MobileMe and really liked the gallery feature. Until, when I deleted a couple of web pages I'd done as an experiment in iWeb and it erased all my galleries. It lost appointments and contacts, and the lost galleries really cost me some credibility with my colleagues. I started looking for alternatives and now use MobileMe to back up a few document files on my home computer (I use about 15% of the capacity I paid for). That's a subscription I won't renew. If the next iPhoto update is another $80 and doesn't add significant features or usability, it will fall off the list as well.
I've found, more and more, that Google gets it, where other companies, Apple included (and I go back to 1986 with Apple) just don't. Remember Quark? Didn't keep up.

[webraider]

Keep in mind that the $80 won't just buy you iPhoto.. I will also get you the other iapps which I believe will see significant upgrades to, especially iMovie. I personally want to see either, collages and better slideshows in the iApps. I also want to se more effects in iMovie.

What I meant by compete was it doesn't move in and take over implying that you're not going to use iPhoto anymore. It works with iPhoto to whatever level you want to work in Picasa. I work in Photoshop too but there is still some photo correction that Neither iPhoto, or Picasa will do that Photoshop will do. I don't use Photoshop's photo management features as I still use iPhoto for that, but I don't think Picasa or iPhoto will ever completely replace Photoshop.

[Block_Head]

Hallelujah!

[Block_Head]

you wrote: "I'm surprised they did this as it's nowhere near as good as iPhoto."

==

Shyah, right...

Somebody's been living under a rock.

[igamogam]

Google have let this slide for too long, I can't see why Maccies would ditch iPhoto.
With the mobile.me gallery and that Apple will potentially beef-up their web services, there isn't much incentive to move over to a beta. Particularly as it is pretty much what every PC user uses, minimal individuality just part of the crowd. At least the ".me" gallery is different and impresses most folk who see it!
Picasa's attractiveness lies is the simple and integrated way it works, a very mac-like experience which is missing for the average PC punter, but for Macs it's the norm.

[Peter_Macworld]

I have been waiting for this moment for years!

Unfortunately, moving files between the PC and your Mac won't be so easy. Picasa stores the picture settings in a file called picasa.ini on the PC, and the file is called .picasa.ini on the Mac. Also, the originals get stored in a folder called Originals on the PC and .picasaoriginals on the Mac.

I did a test to see if the PC version of Picasa will acknowledge the Mac ini file and originals folder, but it doesn't, unfortunately.

This incompatibility is a HUGE disappointment.

[ukmacuser]

lhudd said:

Son of a... why on earth is this thing Intel only? Dammit... can someone please help me understand how this happens? what development tools ONLY support intel architecture?

The Linux version is the same - x86 only, and with earlier versions of Picasa (not sure about the latest builds) this was because it was using Wine to run compiled Windows code in the background. Maybe the OSX version does the same.

[whitedog]

You can get the desktop Picasa app here: http://picasa.google.com/mac/.

As for why one might use it, $20 a year is a lot less than the $99 Apple charges for MobileMe (not to mention the cost of iLife '08 if you didn't get it on a new Mac). If all you want to do is post your pictures for friends and family to see, it's a bargain. So the interface is underdeveloped - this is beta software after all. If it takes off I expect Google will invest more time and Mac expertise in it.