Contacted by a British iPad enthusiast requesting Picasa support for the iPad and iTunes, Steve Jobs did some more iPad customer support this weekend and took the time to reply.
Unsurprisingly, he turned the guy down and confirmed that Apple has no plans to support Picasa’s library format on the iPad. He went a little further actually adding that anyway, “iPhoto on the Mac has much better Faces and Places features”.
While he’s right about the latter, this might not be very convenient for Windows users, and there are still some left I’ve heard.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, he still didn’t update his iPhone.
Yep, there is still more than 90% of the people that uses Windows. Just “some” left.
I understand that Steve wants iPhone, iPod touch, iPod, and iPad users to ultimately buy Mac’s. That was the main reason for the iPods. However, leaving out 90% of his customers from being able to use photos comfortably and easily really doesn’t sound like a great idea PR wise.
Also, I understand he’s a busy guy. However, he needs to get one of his lackeys to write him some email templates that sound a little nicer. The emails I have seen that are supposedly from him seem very terse and a bit rude.
‘Terse and a bit rude’. I thought all apple employees are like that! That is why my iPhone is the last apple product I will buy.
Where did you get that from? I always get outstanding service for my apple products, apple is known for having fantastic customer service.
I too have had nothing but outstanding service from Apple. Mind you, I haven’t had to deal with the AppStore reviewers, and I’m sure that is where @Skidds’ comment comes from.
I have trouble believing the validity of these Steve Jobs email responses. He is obviously aware that an email liek this would be broadcast to the world, so if this is something he wouldn’t say publicly, this is not something he would say over email. To imply that every iPad owner should have a mac is against Apple’s goal
Why is this question even being directed to Steve Jobs? Picasa is a Google product. I have the Mac client program for it which was produced by and supported by Google. Why would the iPad be different from the Mac in this respect? Picasa will be supported on the iPad if Google decides it is worth their effort to do so. Since there are already reports of Kindle support from Amazon on the iPad I don’t see why Picasa support from Google would be unlikely. But don’t expect Apple to be doing the heavy lifting, that is up to Google.
Steve, the question was asked because of all the Windows folks that have no real decent photo syncing support. Sure, you can tell iTunes to “sync” a folder to the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, but not like with iPhoto where you can select specific Albums, Events, and/or Faces. Google has nothing to do with that at all. It’s all up to Apple to decide how they will handle what gets sync’ed on Windows systems.
Indeed. I suppose what would be needed is a Picasa application for the iPad. At the same time, since you can download photos from the iPhone onto your Windows PC, I wonder whether the same mechanism can be used to upload photos? I have never given it a go.