Although most of Google's software is available for the Mac, the company's Picasa photo application has been conspicuously absent. There hasn't been much in the way of Mac news related to Picasa, either, but some news appeared this week that is putting Picasa back in the minds of Mac users. According to an AppleInsider source, a Mac version of the software is not only coming, but is already undergoing internal beta testing at Google.

Google said in January that a Mac version of Picasa would be coming sometime in 2008, but given the lack of news since then, it didn't look as though that prediction would come true. Based on this new rumor, though, there seems to be a pretty good chance that Picasa will appear before 2009. Internal beta testing has supposedly "just begun," and it's unclear just how long that period will take. Since the company isn't exactly shy about releasing software with a beta label, I think a few weeks of internal testing followed by the release of a public beta sounds plausible. A release sometime in January is also possible if Google decides things need a bit more time to stew.

Our own David Chartier had good things to say about the newest version of the application, Picasa 3, and the Mac version of Picasa will provide iPhoto with a bit of competition by providing a reasonable alternative to Apple's application. I'm sure a good number of Mac users will be happy to see Picasa appear, so hopefully Google will get it out the door as soon as possible.