You have to hand it to the gutsy folks at Google. It isn’t easy to challenge a tiger (no pun intended) in its own territory but these people are certainly not afraid to try their luck. After bringing Google Desktop, a direct competitor to Spotlight, to the Mac, and teasing us with a Mac version of the Picasa Web Albums Uploader, they are now planning to release Picasa, their photo organization and basic editing application, for Mac OS X. They have already challenged Apple’s built-in search utility and now intend to take on the marquee application of Apple’s well respected iLife suite of applications, which is bundled with every Mac.
Duncan Riley of TechCrunch got lucky at the Macworld Expo this year and dug the truth out of an unexperienced Google employee. It “is under development and will be launched later this year”.
That’s all well and good. However, I don’t see why any significant number of Mac users would want to use Google’s applications when they’ve been using Apple’s perfectly capable, well integrated and free counterparts for so long. I, for one, have never even tried to use Google Desktop on my Mac because I find Spotlight sufficient for my needs (specially in Leopard) and I’m pretty sure I won’t feel the inclination to give Picasa a trial run either, given my satisfaction with iPhoto ‘08.
I guess Google’s ears perked up at the significant number of Windows users switching to Mac OS X these days and they want to reach out and grab the switcher market before Apple has had a chance to ensnare them. Whatever be the cause, a little competition can only be good for us, right?
Ah yes, but iPhoto isnt free!
If you've got an old version of iPhoto the free 'upgrade' to Picasa might be appealing.
iLife isn't free.
That being said, I found Picasa (actually, watching my sister use it) to be confusing compared to iPhoto (which I don't use either).
I couldn't use iphoto 08 in leopard. because all my photos are primarily managed with lightroom, and the lightroom metadata causes all apple apps to malfunction/crash. it will be nice to see how picasa works out as a lightweight photo manager on mac.
iPhoto is unparalleled in its ease of use.
Picassa has one feature I miss on iPhoto; private albums.
I for one have been eagerly awaiting an iPhoto alternative. I only buy the iLife suites every year to update iPhoto––I never use the other apps (except iTunes, which is free). So, this is welcome news to me. In fact, I'll put off upgrading to '08 until I see Picasa.
Picasa is nothing compared to iPhoto. Sure it isn't free, but almost everyone and anyone who has a mac, has got it installed.
"I, for one, have never even tried to use Google Desktop on my Mac because I find Spotlight sufficient for my needs (specially in Leopard) and I'm pretty sure I won't feel the inclination to give Picasa a trial run either, given my satisfaction with iPhoto ‘08."
So how or why are you qualified to write about this stuff?
Umm... because I happen to be one of the bloggers here? :p
Picasa is a nice tool, but so is iPhoto, and iPhoto is superbly integrated with everything else on a Mac. Using Picasa on a Mac when iPhoto is available simply puts you right back where you were when you were on Windows: sure you can find the app that does what you want, but good luck having it play nicely with everything other app you use.
The other big differentiating factor: have a look and compare the aesthetics of the web gallery generated by Picasa and the one by iPhoto '08.
I cannot wait for Picasa to be released for Mac. Since switching, it's the one app that I really, truly miss from the PC (other than games). I don't really like iPhoto at all, and the new monolithic structure screws up sharing photos across non-Mac devices. Thank you, Google, for listening to our pleas!
Good luck to Google bad user interfaces won't go over well on the Mac.
Good luck to Google on this one - competition is great and if this will force Apple to keep one step ahead of Google then that's fine with me, not least because Google is unlikely to push Apple out of their own market. Whether or not current Mac owners are going to be interested in this remains to be seen but I do know that one of the reasons given by some PC owners for not switching to the Mac is that Picassa doesn't exist on the Mac. One less barrier to movement is great even if it may be a smokescreen.
Personally, I've not used Picassa but have heard great things about it and the tutorials that appear in the photography magazines that I buy certainly seem to imply that its a real competitor to iPhoto in terms of features. More than anything else I wonder what this will do to Adobe's support for the Mac with Photoshop Elements.
Picasa is what iPhoto should have been - it leaves your pictures where they are on the disk, and it manages all the tasks you need faster and more easily than iPhoto. It's simply way better. I am looking forward to it.
iPhoto has always been the worst of the iApps, and as people noted, it's absolutely not free. I will dump it as soon as Picasa is out. I know people who have VMWare Fusion just to be able to use Picasa...
I have been using iPhoto since 2005 when I bought my first Mac ( a mac mini ) and upgraded my iLife along the way. I still miss Picasa.
Picasa ( on Windows ) was able to find and index all 26GB of my photo collection and present it for sharing via email or on the web ( Picasa for Web ) or create photo albums or order prints ( more choices than iPhoto ). And it never slowed down.
iPhoto is a sleep dog ( even on a Dual Core Mac ) with the same library. It's slow as molasses and I have very limited options for ordering prints or albums directly from the application. I love my mac and OS X but iPhoto is weak compared to Picasa.
Links:
http://picasa.google.com/
http://picasaweb.google.com/