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

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.

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.

Hallelujah!

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.

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.

I've used Picasa for years on the PC side. Like any competing product, there will always be a feature or two that one product does better than another. However, overall, Picasa's interface is clumsy as compared to iPhoto. Though Picasa is a capable product and probably best in class on the PC side, there is little reason for Mac users who already use iPhoto to consider switching. Also, I would expect iPhoto to be updated soon - possibly in today's Keynote.

That said, I'm happy to see Google bring product parity across platforms, even if it isn't better than iPhoto. Choice is always a good thing. Further, switchers may find comfort in the familiarity of using the same program as they migrate to the Mac.