That Picasa interface is only about 500x500 pixels, and it represents a good balance of useful visual data (photo thumbnails), and application controls (ability to set size of uploaded photos, adding album captions, etc).
There's actually a lot of superfluous/poorly conceived ideas here.
There's a lot of text and not a lot of visual information. Take the line: "You're currently using 630 MB(61%) of your 1,024 MB." Many users don't understand what a MB is, and honestly the only thing people really care about is the capacity. A better representation would look like a scaled-down version of the iDisk Usage bar.
The whole thing looks a lot like a print setup screen or something. The pictures aren't maximized in the space allotted, which itself is vertically truncated to allow for the Picasa logo and a ton of unused space in the lower left corner. This exists because of the ill-concieve layout overall, with an oddly large text input box to accomodate apparently massive captions for the album.
I'm astonished you think this is a well-crafted UI. It looks like something Microsoft or Adobe would put together.
On the other hand, the screenshots of that Courier apps are all eye candy and not a lot of function. For example, do you really need to see a full map of US with a dotted line between the two pushpins to represent that the photo has been "sent"?
I don't think that's what the UI is for.
I understand the developer is trying to differentiate this app from a myriad of other apps that already do similar things, so he's going for flashy UI. Or perhaps he's trying to dumb it down to "your mom" type users (who I'd be amazed would be very likely to use social media apps in the first place, as you rightly pointed out).
In any case, to me - all these bookshelves, envelopes and maps are just pure distraction. There is SOME argument that they may add value in a touch-based iOS app, where you can touch and move objects around.. But they're useless eye candy in a non-touch desktop environment.
I think what you fail to realize is that the vast majority of OSX users are "your mom" types. An app like this isn't targeted at power-users, because we can use scripts and other tools to get the job done. The vast majority of people really struggle with very simple and basic computer concepts like hierarchies, filesystems, collections etc. Heck, most Mac users struggle to understand how to install an application (an embarrassingly large percent end up running their apps from the downloads folder) so tools that help them form mental models of what's going on are really helpful--anything that can make abstract computer concepts into intelligible ideas.
It's also nice to have software that feels fun to use. I have a few apps that I look forward to opening because they're so polished (Little Snapper being one).
To again address the point that is isn't newsworthy, people need to realize that in the Indie mac software world this actually is news. Honestly, I get more excited when an app is released that has been designed from the ground-up to be the best experience possible on OSX than when I see that a major corporation has made a crappy port of one of their big-name apps.
As I said earlier, there really aren't that many 100% dedicated Mac developer companies out there, and I think it reflects poorly on many of the Macrumors community members who don't think it's a good idea to encourage and foster the indie community which is part of what makes the Mac platform so unique and special. Especially when a "big name" indie mac company unveils a brand-new 1.0 title.
I don't personally have a need for this app, and I'm not convinced that it will be a commercial success, but the fact that OSX is able to sustain companies who can focus on apps that are 100% Mac from the ground up, and not some cross-platform monstrosity, should be celebrated. I'm thankful that Arn realizes the value of the Indie Mac Community and intends to continue to support it.
