Mac users trolling for interesting, free open source software may want to peek into Google’s new Mac Developer Playground unveiled this week. It contains a collection of open source software tools and applications created by Google’s own engineers, some of which are mature applications and some of which are brand new.

The new playground initially offers six applications: Stats, GData, MacFUSE, iPhone Disk, Cover Story and Quartz Composer Patches. There will be more to come in coming months.
According to a post on Google’s Mac blog from Amit Singh, Engineering Manager, and Karen Grunberg, Product Manager at Google:
“You won’t be surprised to learn that we like to mix a healthy dose of fun into work. Our Mac team engineers spend their 20% time developing interesting experiments, useful tools, and just-for-fun software.”
It’s an official Google policy to allow engineers and others to dedicate 20 percent of their time to work on outside projects. It’s not clear yet whether outside developers will be asked to contribute to the Mac Developer Playground.
So what are the six applications all about? GData lets you write Objective C apps that let you talk to Google’s services through GData APIs. Statz, a brand new app, lets you update your status across many IM and chat networks. MacFUSE, which has been around, lets you drop a file system into applications on Mac OS X. The iPhone Disk application lets you use a file system for reading and writing data on your iPhone. CoverStory is a UI for analyzing files on the Mac. And Quartz Composer Patches are patches for Leopard that work with ambient light and motion sensors.
Google has also just released an iPhone application. It gives you quick access to several Google services, including search, Gmail, Calendar, Reader, and more. In addition, Google offers Telekinesis which lets you access your Mac via the iPhone. Also, if you don’t happen to have GPS in your cell phone, take a look at Google’s new MyLocation application. It’s an update to Google Maps for Mobile that lets you get at basic location information without having GPS. As Google becomes more focused on the world of wireless, expect more of these types of applications as well as more open source Mac apps.
Do you have any recommended open source applications for the Mac?
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