Pretty difficult to make a judgement when you haven't even tried it. I challenge anyone to show me a better Windows-to-Mac port than this Picasa, and like I said it absolutely destroys iPhoto when it comes to performance and memory usage. And it's still only in Beta (there are rough edges)
There are a lot of people moving from Windows to OS X, and Picasa is often cited as the Windows software they miss the most. I don't think any of those people will think Picasa looks ugly or out of place. I think a lot of those people will have trouble moving to iPhoto if Picasa is available.
There's certainly no shortage of people who will say this looks different that a typical OS X and judge it solely on that rather than the actual merits of software. There isn't anything Google can do for those people. Like Steve Jobs said, "If you look backward in this business, you?ll be crushed. You have to look forward."
Thankfully he mac will have a free alternative to the steaming pile of sh*t that comes bundled on the mac. Picasa is a welcome improvement from iPhoto hell.
"Events" in iPhoto is the stupidest implementation of photo sorting I have ever seen. It is incredibly broken and useless for organizing the photos on my computer.
Interface aside, and I have no idea yet but does it totally and seamlessly integrate with Aperture, iMovie, iWeb, Pages etc.?
Apparently, it doesn't, but that's not a consideration for my needs. Heck, I'm a lot more deliberate than that. Just indiscriminantly dragging and dropping photos tends to lead to needlessly huge files, so I tend to export a reduced size image that hits target needs right away. iDVD would probably scale the output, but a PDF print of Pages could net me the equivalent of 1200 pixels per inch images, meaning huge files and really slowing down processing and printing in a needless way when 300 does the job just as well for image quality and works much faster.
Some of you need to quit complaining.. Its free for god sakes! I don't know about the OSX version, but the XP version is great, particularly for novice users (like your mom). It comes with a built-in shell viewer which is leagues ahead of the normal "windows picture viewer" thing you get when you double click a photo in XP.
I obviously still use Photoshop, but Picasa works great as an photo organizer, particularly if you use it's built-in "Picasa Web Albums" feature.. very easy to share pics with friends and family members.
Pretty difficult to make a judgement when you haven't even tried it. I challenge anyone to show me a better Windows-to-Mac port than this Picasa, ...
Well, I pretty much indicated that I was judging it on it's appearance and on the brief info we have and that despite it's ugliness I was willing to try it anyway to see if it's (possibly) fabulous functionality made it's appearance and layout any more palatable. I think that's eminently fair. Most people who were initially turned off by the way something appears, would look no further than that.
You also miss my point entirely. I didn't say this was a bad port of a Windows product, I said I would prefer it if it wasn't a port at all, and I didn't understand why a company with Googles resources can't do cross platform development and has to rely on ports (that are late).
... There's certainly no shortage of people who will say this looks different that a typical OS X and judge it solely on that rather than the actual merits of software. There isn't anything Google can do for those people. ...
OMG I missed this part.
This has to be the dumbest statement ever. Nothing that Google can do? Couldn't they, you know ... make a native app?
I mean sure, it's not *that* ugly and if iPhoto wasn't around as an alternative, I would probably use it. iPhoto is far from perfect itself.
The point is though there is a long tradition of making apps "look right" on the OS that they are made for. To use the natural look and feel of the OS. It also makes a lot of sense from a design point of view. Probably too much ink has been spent on this minor topic already, but there is no way is it not a valid criticism of the app that it has no "native" look and feel. Google just didn't care about that I guess.
It's their decision, but I have a right to my reaction to it.
Picasa does not move or reorganize your image files.
Sold.
As someone who brings in gigs of photos onto a MacBook each week, iPhoto just doesn't make sense. If you're not serious enough to pony up for a full professional ($$$) photo suite and not interested in hacks to manage multiple photo libraries using iPhoto's black box means of file storage, that is reason enough to give it a shot.
Seriously, this is one of the few remaining apps I power up my Windows desktop for. Don't be so quick to dismiss it.
Yeah but they can still comment on whether they like it or not.
I mean let's face it 3 years ago Picasa was arguably better looking than iPhoto. Now iPhoto
makes Picasa look like some sort of sourceforge project. I guess it speaks volumes to Apple's design ethos.
I wouldn't call Picasa a sourceforge project (Ouch!). I use Picasa at work on Windows to organize tens of thousands of photos for enforcement cases and it is quick, integrates beautifully with Outlook and is efficient. And there is no denying the speed of this app on my iMac. iPhoto has never has this kind of speed. As far as it being not Mac like, well just look at the debacle that is Office 2008 and its beginnings where the beta testers had the same complaint that the ribbon sucked, etc. and MS changed it and tried to make it more "Mac like" --and failed miserably IMHO. It took me no time to get used to the ribbon and I sure wish that MS would have incorporated the look and feel of Office 2007 in Office 2008. Office 2008 is totally inferior to Office 2007. Point being not all "ports" should be discounted just because they are.
This has to be the dumbest statement ever. Nothing that Google can do? Couldn't they, you know ... make a native app?
I mean sure, it's not *that* ugly and if iPhoto wasn't around as an alternative, I would probably use it. iPhoto is far from perfect itself.
The point is though there is a long tradition of making apps "look right" on the OS that they are made for. To use the natural look and feel of the OS. It also makes a lot of sense from a design point of view. Probably too much ink has been spent on this minor topic already, but there is no way is it not a valid criticism of the app that it has no "native" look and feel. Google just didn't care about that I guess.
It's their decision, but I have a right to my reaction to it.
Fascinating. Ever seen itunes or safari for windows?
I wouldn't call Picasa a sourceforge project (Ouch!). I use Picasa at work on Windows to organize tens of thousands of photos for enforcement cases and it is quick, integrates beautifully with Outlook and is efficient. And there is no denying the speed of this app on my iMac. iPhoto has never has this kind of speed. As far as it being not Mac like, well just look at the debacle that is Office 2008 and its beginnings where the beta testers had the same complaint that the ribbon sucked, etc. and MS changed it and tried to make it more "Mac like" --and failed miserably IMHO. It took me no time to get used to the ribbon and I sure wish that MS would have incorporated the look and feel of Office 2007 in Office 2008. Office 2008 is totally inferior to Office 2007. Point being not all "ports" should be discounted just because they are.
I would only use this if the Picasa photo sharing is free. If they are going to index my photos and push ads in my face then free sounds about right. I would prefer it over MobileMe.
I just don't understand all the complaints about the interface. It was designed at least 8 years ago before Google ever bought the company. This software is not Googles. I happen to think it works rather well. In fact Aperture borrows the shuttle button for scrolling. Which was really handy when we all didn't have scroll wheels on every mouse.
Picasa for mac will not replace iPhoto and probably should not. However it does some things much better than iPhoto.
1. Watched folders. You never need to tell it to import images that are in a watched folder. It will just add them every time you put images in the folder.
2. There is not one huge database file. Admittedly iPhoto does allow storage of photo's outside the database now, but the database file still stores all the duplicates and thumbnails. With Picasa you can sort your photo's into folder where ever you want.
3. Speed. Even the "pro" apps are not very good in this regard. I have used Lightroom, Aperture, iView(which is now expressioin media), and iPhoto. I have even tried a couple of other PC apps just to see how they handle a large number of pictures and all seem really slow compared to Picasa. And what is a large number.... anything over 10,000 images is pushing the limits of most other programs. Not just scrolling and viewing, but searching.
If anything Picasa is really a great compliment to iPhoto. I will be using it to catalog my images. I will continue to use iPhoto for books and calendars and my .Me galleries, but since I have such a large number of images on external drives. Picasa will be the go to software for cataloging.
Picasa is really a joy to use in Windows, I would consider using it on my mac just for that reason. I also like the fact that it's smart with the photo storing structure, I've encountered a few mac users who have royally screwed up their photo libraries because they thought they could go around messing with the photo library files.
This Picasa port is about a year overdue in my book. Keep it coming, Goog.
Comments
I disagree.
I'm going to try it anyway
Pretty difficult to make a judgement when you haven't even tried it. I challenge anyone to show me a better Windows-to-Mac port than this Picasa, and like I said it absolutely destroys iPhoto when it comes to performance and memory usage. And it's still only in Beta (there are rough edges)
There are a lot of people moving from Windows to OS X, and Picasa is often cited as the Windows software they miss the most. I don't think any of those people will think Picasa looks ugly or out of place. I think a lot of those people will have trouble moving to iPhoto if Picasa is available.
There's certainly no shortage of people who will say this looks different that a typical OS X and judge it solely on that rather than the actual merits of software. There isn't anything Google can do for those people. Like Steve Jobs said, "If you look backward in this business, you?ll be crushed. You have to look forward."
Options are good.
If you don't like Picasa, then don't use it. Simple as that.
"Events" in iPhoto is the stupidest implementation of photo sorting I have ever seen. It is incredibly broken and useless for organizing the photos on my computer.
Interface aside, and I have no idea yet but does it totally and seamlessly integrate with Aperture, iMovie, iWeb, Pages etc.?
Apparently, it doesn't, but that's not a consideration for my needs. Heck, I'm a lot more deliberate than that. Just indiscriminantly dragging and dropping photos tends to lead to needlessly huge files, so I tend to export a reduced size image that hits target needs right away. iDVD would probably scale the output, but a PDF print of Pages could net me the equivalent of 1200 pixels per inch images, meaning huge files and really slowing down processing and printing in a needless way when 300 does the job just as well for image quality and works much faster.
I obviously still use Photoshop, but Picasa works great as an photo organizer, particularly if you use it's built-in "Picasa Web Albums" feature.. very easy to share pics with friends and family members.
Pretty difficult to make a judgement when you haven't even tried it. I challenge anyone to show me a better Windows-to-Mac port than this Picasa, ...
Well, I pretty much indicated that I was judging it on it's appearance and on the brief info we have and that despite it's ugliness I was willing to try it anyway to see if it's (possibly) fabulous functionality made it's appearance and layout any more palatable. I think that's eminently fair. Most people who were initially turned off by the way something appears, would look no further than that.
You also miss my point entirely. I didn't say this was a bad port of a Windows product, I said I would prefer it if it wasn't a port at all, and I didn't understand why a company with Googles resources can't do cross platform development and has to rely on ports (that are late).
... There's certainly no shortage of people who will say this looks different that a typical OS X and judge it solely on that rather than the actual merits of software. There isn't anything Google can do for those people. ...
OMG I missed this part.
This has to be the dumbest statement ever. Nothing that Google can do? Couldn't they, you know ... make a native app?
I mean sure, it's not *that* ugly and if iPhoto wasn't around as an alternative, I would probably use it. iPhoto is far from perfect itself.
The point is though there is a long tradition of making apps "look right" on the OS that they are made for. To use the natural look and feel of the OS. It also makes a lot of sense from a design point of view. Probably too much ink has been spent on this minor topic already, but there is no way is it not a valid criticism of the app that it has no "native" look and feel. Google just didn't care about that I guess.
It's their decision, but I have a right to my reaction to it.
Sold.
As someone who brings in gigs of photos onto a MacBook each week, iPhoto just doesn't make sense. If you're not serious enough to pony up for a full professional ($$$) photo suite and not interested in hacks to manage multiple photo libraries using iPhoto's black box means of file storage, that is reason enough to give it a shot.
Seriously, this is one of the few remaining apps I power up my Windows desktop for. Don't be so quick to dismiss it.
Too many people here are too quick to automatically poo-poo anything that's not Apple.
Options are good.
If you don't like Picasa, then don't use it. Simple as that.
Yeah but they can still comment on whether they like it or not.
I mean let's face it 3 years ago Picasa was arguably better looking than iPhoto. Now iPhoto
makes Picasa look like some sort of sourceforge project. I guess it speaks volumes to Apple's design ethos.
Yeah but they can still comment on whether they like it or not.
I mean let's face it 3 years ago Picasa was arguably better looking than iPhoto. Now iPhoto
makes Picasa look like some sort of sourceforge project. I guess it speaks volumes to Apple's design ethos.
I wouldn't call Picasa a sourceforge project (Ouch!). I use Picasa at work on Windows to organize tens of thousands of photos for enforcement cases and it is quick, integrates beautifully with Outlook and is efficient. And there is no denying the speed of this app on my iMac. iPhoto has never has this kind of speed. As far as it being not Mac like, well just look at the debacle that is Office 2008 and its beginnings where the beta testers had the same complaint that the ribbon sucked, etc. and MS changed it and tried to make it more "Mac like" --and failed miserably IMHO. It took me no time to get used to the ribbon and I sure wish that MS would have incorporated the look and feel of Office 2007 in Office 2008. Office 2008 is totally inferior to Office 2007. Point being not all "ports" should be discounted just because they are.
Yep. This is surely for PC users who have no clue how great iLife is.
By great you mean slow, not integrated with finder, and lacking in editing features compared to other free photo editing apps?
OMG I missed this part.
This has to be the dumbest statement ever. Nothing that Google can do? Couldn't they, you know ... make a native app?
I mean sure, it's not *that* ugly and if iPhoto wasn't around as an alternative, I would probably use it. iPhoto is far from perfect itself.
The point is though there is a long tradition of making apps "look right" on the OS that they are made for. To use the natural look and feel of the OS. It also makes a lot of sense from a design point of view. Probably too much ink has been spent on this minor topic already, but there is no way is it not a valid criticism of the app that it has no "native" look and feel. Google just didn't care about that I guess.
It's their decision, but I have a right to my reaction to it.
Fascinating. Ever seen itunes or safari for windows?
Too many people here are too quick to automatically poo-poo anything that's not Apple.
Options are good.
If you don't like Picasa, then don't use it. Simple as that.
I couldn't agree more. My only complaint is that it requires an Intel CPU. My poor G4 Mac mini...left in the cold.
I wouldn't call Picasa a sourceforge project (Ouch!). I use Picasa at work on Windows to organize tens of thousands of photos for enforcement cases and it is quick, integrates beautifully with Outlook and is efficient. And there is no denying the speed of this app on my iMac. iPhoto has never has this kind of speed. As far as it being not Mac like, well just look at the debacle that is Office 2008 and its beginnings where the beta testers had the same complaint that the ribbon sucked, etc. and MS changed it and tried to make it more "Mac like" --and failed miserably IMHO. It took me no time to get used to the ribbon and I sure wish that MS would have incorporated the look and feel of Office 2007 in Office 2008. Office 2008 is totally inferior to Office 2007. Point being not all "ports" should be discounted just because they are.
I would only use this if the Picasa photo sharing is free. If they are going to index my photos and push ads in my face then free sounds about right. I would prefer it over MobileMe.
I don't know what the heck you guys are spewing about iPhoto. It pales in comparison to Picasa. Picasa is so much more logically organized.
Picasa for mac will not replace iPhoto and probably should not. However it does some things much better than iPhoto.
1. Watched folders. You never need to tell it to import images that are in a watched folder. It will just add them every time you put images in the folder.
2. There is not one huge database file. Admittedly iPhoto does allow storage of photo's outside the database now, but the database file still stores all the duplicates and thumbnails. With Picasa you can sort your photo's into folder where ever you want.
3. Speed. Even the "pro" apps are not very good in this regard. I have used Lightroom, Aperture, iView(which is now expressioin media), and iPhoto. I have even tried a couple of other PC apps just to see how they handle a large number of pictures and all seem really slow compared to Picasa. And what is a large number.... anything over 10,000 images is pushing the limits of most other programs. Not just scrolling and viewing, but searching.
If anything Picasa is really a great compliment to iPhoto. I will be using it to catalog my images. I will continue to use iPhoto for books and calendars and my .Me galleries, but since I have such a large number of images on external drives. Picasa will be the go to software for cataloging.
thedude
This Picasa port is about a year overdue in my book. Keep it coming, Goog.