Filed under: Photo, Video, Macintosh, Productivity, Google, Freeware
Picasa for Mac beta finally arrives
by Jason Clarke Jan 6th 2009 at 11:00AM
Well, for those people wishing for the Picasa experience on their Mac, today is a glorious day. Today Google released a beta version of Picasa for the Mac, and in typical Google fashion this beta release is solid enough for widespread use. I suppose I should insert a joke about how every Google product stays in beta for years, but I'm sure you can think of one funnier than whatever I might come up with. Or maybe you're just as tired as I am of that particular Google jab?
To try it out, download the beta from here.
By default, Picasa will index any images on your Desktop, in your Pictures folder, and all of your iPhoto library. For 90% of users, this default will be exactly what they are looking for. A single click to accept the default is all that is needed for Picasa to spring into action, furiously indexing all of the photos on your computer. Picasa's indexing is surprisingly fast, and though I have not done any side-by-side testing, it certainly feels faster than Picasa on Windows when it comes to indexing photos.
In fact, Picasa feels blazingly fast no matter what you are doing with it. Google proudly proclaims that Picasa can handle huge photo libraries with ease, and given how handily it dealt with my photo library, I'm inclined to believe them.
Anyone that has used Picasa in Windows will feel right at home in the Mac version, as it is a very faithful clone of the original Windows version. While that is wonderful for continuity's sake, it's also my only current knock against the product; in making it feel so much like its Windows counterpart, it just doesn't feel nearly as Mac like as it could have. For an example of a companies that are doing products for the Windows and Mac operating systems well, check out Evernote's Mac and Windows products, and NewsGator's NetNewsWire (Mac) & FeedDemon (Windows) combination. Both companies have feature parity for both platforms (at least as far as core features are concerned), and yet each product feels right at home in its operating system.
The fact that Picasa on the Mac performs so quickly certainly takes the edge off of that complaint, however, since the most common problem with software that is ported to another platform is typically poor performance.
For some examples of why you might want to consider Picasa as either a replacement for iPhoto, or at least an adjunct to it, check out the demonstration video embedded on the Picasa announcement post on the Google blog.
Note that when word first came out that Picasa had been released for the Mac, the download link incorrectly pointed to the Picasa Web Album Uploader product. The link has subsequently been fixed, so if you are attempting to download Picasa and keep getting the album uploader, try clearing your browser's cache, then try again.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
kingkool68 said 12:18PM on 1-06-2009
I was so excited by the rumors nearly a year ago -> http://www.russellheimlich.com/blog/picasa-is-coming-for-the-mac/. This thing is great on the Mac. Now I just need to find a way to sync up my PC instance and my Mac instance so I can work anywhere in the house.
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Zaven said 1:43PM on 1-06-2009
It's such a shame. I got a powerbook g4, love picasa, and can't use it. This thing needs a powerpc version. arg!!
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Quikboy said 2:28AM on 1-09-2009
Why? Don't all Macs come with iLife installed?
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Gary K said 4:02PM on 1-09-2009
All Mac's do come with iLife installed but iWork is an optional program. This package alone far exceeds any offering that Microsoft includes with Windows although Work's is improved it still can't touch the abilities of iLife.
Quikboy said 12:12AM on 1-10-2009
Are we talking about Google Picasa? I'm not talking about Windows or iWork.
I'm asking why Google is bothering to release Picasa when Macs come with iLife that works better than Picasa.
Gary K said 4:02PM on 1-09-2009
From what I know and can find out all new Mac's come with iLife. Older Mac's and MacBook Pros came with iLife 08 and now that iLife 09 is out the new ones come with iLife 09 and there is an upgrade for recently purchased computers that have ilife 08 provided you purchased them within a certain time period from the iLife 09 release. The really weak offering from Apple is their text application but there are some free downloads available such as textwrangler.app that is free and gives you more flexibility but I would like to see Apple provide in their iLife package a better text program and some flat file database app as standard on their products. From what I can see iLife 09's iPhoto is worth the price of the upgrade alone based upon the upgrades but then others will see that differently. Still based on what you get in the package it blows away anything that Microsoft offers it's users as does iWork 09 & 08 compared to the cost Microsoft hits you with for their Office version. Kudos to Apple once again.
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Quikboy said 12:14AM on 1-10-2009
I understand how iLife can blow away anything Microsoft has, but I really doubt iWork can blow away Microsoft Office. Maybe with some of the neat little transitions and effects on Keynote, but not much else.
Gary K said 8:11PM on 1-11-2009
I have used Microsoft Word for MAC both Office 08, Office 04 and Office 06. iWork 08 and the new iWork 09 (some improvements and more templates) as far as I knew never tried to replace Office. Office remains the Standard for what it is however iWork has made it much easer to accomplish very nice looking documents and do things much easier for the average user than Office's great products that are so filled with goodies which most never are able to utilize. I hope Microsoft does improve Work's and competes both there and in the OS but as it is pricewise and what you get Apple still, in my opinion, holds the overall edge but then you do usually pay more for the hardware, unless you get quality PC products like Sony, Dell, etc and then there isn't that much difference these days in cost. I still use Windows ( XP ) under a virtual environment on my MAC using VM Ware Fusion program and what blows me away is that my Windows programs run far faster and actually more stable then when I ran them under my dedicated Windows (PC) machine. That one I still can't figure out.