A loose-lipped Google employee seems to have confirmed that a version of Picasa, Google's photo management software, for Mac OS X is in the works. Techcrunch's Duncan Riley managed to corner a employee and put her on the spot by asking about Picasa for Mac. Her response was that "Picasa for Mac is under-development and will be launched later this year."
We sincerely hope she doesn't get fired for that statement since, while not an official announcement, it's a marked break from the usual “no comment” response we typically receive whenever we ask about Picasa for Mac. And it certainly sounds like, judging from that employee and the rest of the Google team that Riley talked to, that Picasa is indeed headed for the Mac.
While Mac users already have the similar, and some might argue, more robust, iPhoto, Picasa has proven very popular on both Windows and Linux (and that's despite the fact that it isn't open source).
Although its primary function is to get your photos from your camera to Google's Picasa service, it has a number of nice editing features and, at least in my testing on Linux, Picasa seems much faster than iPhoto on a Mac.
Then there's a obvious benefit of having the same software regardless on the platform you're using, which is always appealing for Apple's ever-growing switcher audience.
If and when Picasa for the Mac does arrive we'll be sure to put it through the paces and give you our full report.
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