Native look and feel in Picasa Mobile 3.3.0

And... we're back! After a short hiatus due to moving from Montreal to Toronto, we've just released a new version of Picasa Mobile, 3.3.0 which offers native look and feel for users running Jelly Bean, ICS or Honeycomb.
For Gingerbread and Froyo users, the look and feel remains pretty much the same, except for new menu icons.

We have also fixed some bugs and made the Camera requirements optional. More details coming soon.

Local Media improvements in Picasa Mobile 3.1.6

A new Picasa Mobile release, 3.1.6, has just been published to Google's Play Store.

The highlights of this version:

• A nicer UI for the Local Media section, including local album thumbnails and photo counts
• The "Yesterday" option, when grouping local media by date
• A few sorting (ordering) options in the thumbnail views:
• Sorting by date (ascending or descending)
• Sorting by file name  (ascending or descending)

Thumbnails and photo counts, when grouped by date

Thumbnails and photo counts, when grouped by folder

The sorting option, in the options menu

Various sorting orders

Optional resizing before upload in Picasa Mobile

A new version of Picasa Mobile, 3.1.5, has just been released. The highlights of this update:

• Optional resizing of photos before upload. This can be enabled from Settings -> Uploads -> Resizing, as shown in the screenshots below. When resizing is activated, the available photo sizes are 1280, 1024 and 800 pixels. This means that the photos will be scaled down to have the largest edge equal to the selected size, while preserving the aspect ratio. (Note: if a photo is smaller than the selected size, no scaling will be applied.)
• We fixed an issue in the embedded camera  occurring on some low-end devices when the application would go into pause mode.

Various enhancements in Picasa Mobile 3.2.4

Picasa Mobile 3.2.4 is now available. This new release includes the following enhancements / fixes:

• The Prompt for album option is now available for the embedded Camera also. You can enable this option from Settings -> Camera Menu -> Prompt for album.
• All the album prompts follow the album sorting order specified in the Album selector view. Alternatively, you can also set this option under Settings -> Photo Browsing -> Viewing -> Album order.
• A random slideshow order option has been added. You can enable it from Settings -> Photo Browsing -> Slideshow -> Random.
• Declared some hardware requirements (like auto-focus, location detection) optional, in order to reach a broader array of devices.
• Bug fix: In previous versions, when the native camera was used and the device was rotated while typing the photo's caption, the caption prompt would disappear and the upload would get cancelled. This is now fixed.
• Bug fix: In previous versions, when downloading again a photo and choosing the Rename option, the renamed photo had automatically a jpg extension. This has been fixed to assign the correct extension based on the media type (ex.: PNG, GIF, etc.).

"Select All" button and improved zoom

We have just released a new version of Picasa Mobile, 3.1.2, including the following new features / improvements:

• We added a "Select all" button when uploading local photos (see screenshot at the end of the post)
• We improved the zooming and panning functionality

For a long time, we tried to resist to the idea of a "Select all" button in upload mode. This was mainly in order to avoid very long and bandwith-intensive upload operations. In other words, to protect the users from themselves...

However, due to the overwhelming demand, we finally caved in and added the long-awaited "Select all" button. We can only hope that you will use it wisely...

To be on the safe side, we also built in some protections mechanisms: "select all" will not select more than 1000 photos and the user will be warned and prompted to confirm before starting heavy uploads. 

Upload/download queue management in Picasa Mobile 3.1.0

Starting with Picasa Mobile 3.1.0, users have now the option of viewing the pending items in the upload/download queue.
For this purpose, we added two queue management screens that can be accessed by dragging-down the upload or download notification icon and then tapping on the notification text, as shown in the screenshots below.

Larger Thumbnails (optional)

We just published a new version of Picasa Mobile, 3.0.7. The major highlight of this version is allowing the users to see larger thumbnails.
This option can be activated from Settings -> Photo Browsing -> Viewing, as shown below.

Picasa Mobile now includes a Quick Launch widget

We have just published a major release of Picasa Mobile, version 3.0.1, which includes a Quick Launch widget.
On most Android models, to add the widget to one of your home screens, you have to do the following:

• Long press on the targeted home screen
• From the context menu that appears, select "Widgets"
• Find the "Picasa Mobile Quick Launch" widget and tap on it. This will add the widget to your home screen.

Please note that on some Honeycomb and ICS models, the widget may not appear right-away in the list of available widgets. If you encounter this issue, all you need to to is a fast reboot of your device.

Please note that the widget will not work if you move the app to the SD Card (this is an Android limitation).

Many thanks to Steven and James for suggesting this enhancement!

Optional hiding of Google+ and Blogger albums

We have just released a new version of Picasa Mobile, 2.8.4, with some more optional features:

• Optional hiding of albums created by Google+ and Blogger. This can be activated from Settings - Photo Browsing - Viewing - Hide Google+ albums.
• Optional prompting for target album before manual uploads. This can be activated from Settings - Uploads - Manual uploads - Prompt for album.

Also, the Prompt for caption setting has been split into two: one for the embedded camera and one for manual uploads. Starting with this version, Prompt for caption also applies to batch uploads (if entered, all photos in a batch will share the same caption).

Picasa Mobile 2.8.2 is now availble

We just published a new version of Picasa Mobile, 2.8.2. Among the highlights of the new version:

•  Local media grouping by folder (optional)
• "About" screen 
• Non-uploaded local photo filter 
• Smoother scrolling for local media

Thumbnail refresh in Picasa Mobile

We just published a new version of Picasa Mobile, 2.7.7, which includes a "Rescan" feature for the local media.
When used, the "rescan" feature will force the Android OS to create new thumbnails for the selected photos.
This was needed because, in certain situations, some thumbnails generated by Android are getting out of sync with their corresponding photos.

A more technical explanation: if the thumbnail information is not properly deleted when deleting a photo, Android OS reuses the thumbnail IDs (instead of generating new ones). Then, when taking a new photo, Android "thinks" that the thumbnail already exists for that photo and it inadvertently reuses the thumbnail of a deleted photo.

Many thanks to Corin for reporting the issue.