Google Picasa

I'm trying out Picasa 3 for the PC, which is made by Google. There are a couple new interface ideas unlike anything I've seen before in this photo-viewing and editing application. For instance, there's a scroll bar on the right... or so you think. Turns out it's actually a control that lets you scroll. It stays in the middle, and when you pull it up, everything scrolls up. If you scroll it down, everything scrolls down. Pull it further up or down to make it scroll faster. Let go, and it'll go back to the center. You can see a kind of 'shadow' on the same bar that tells you where you are on the page.

Now I like interface changes like these. They show lots of creativity in Google. But if you're going to have a way to make an interface, how about you keep it the same in all of your applications? Google Chrome (Google's web browser), for example, doesn't use this scrolling technique; it uses a regular old scroll bar. It also has many unique interface changes that it has and Picasa doesn't, such as lack of the "File Edit View" bar on top. In my opinion, this is a bad thing to do with your applications. If Google ever makes an OS, it may be confusing to use all the different applications Google makes since they all have different ways of using them. Compare this to Apple; they have a universal interface for finding files that started in iTunes, spread to iPhoto, to Finder, and is now a base for navigating OS X. See, keeping it simple is the best way to do it.

I like this a lot though. It displays all the pictures really well. It even has some unexpected features, such as showing only the pictures with face(s) in them. It doesn't work that well, as it showed a MacBook prototype leak as a face. But it does work okay. Overall, I like this much better than "Windows Photo Gallery" (what a stupid name) and is far more original. I say if you have a PC, check it out. I also hear there will be a Mac version soon.

-Derek