I'm pretty sure this is the exact same software--perhaps a newer version--with a slightly different name. The developer used to give it away for free, but has now started charging a shareware fee for all (or almost all) of his products.

With no intention to detract from a comparable program, a noticeable, and major difference between the two is that PictureSwitch displays the image inside the menu, but the alternative program requires you to view the images in a separate window to preview them, i.e. as does the System Preference pane.

Having nothing better to do, i check both devs pages. They are different, and both are still active, with different programs and such. I don't think this is the same coder >_>

With "PictureSwitch", all one's stored images appear instantly in the drop-down menu, while with "Picture Switcher", all one's stored images take a short while to
appear in the window....the more images one has, the longer it takes for them all to be visible. Yet viewing all one's images in a full screen size window IS quite handy and useful.
And in "Picture Switcher", one has the ability to set one's custom border color...useful when choosing a centered desktop image. "PictureSwitch" doesn't have that capability.
I'd say BOTH apps are quite good; which one is preferable is just a matter of individual taste.
While "Picture Switcher" is free, "PictureSwitch"'s $10 price IS quite fair and reasonable.

You're right... they're different. I've always found PictureSwitcher so great I guess I never tried PictureSwitch... but I will now, out of curiosity. I had done review of PictureSwitcher alast year when I decided to make it part of my standard desktop config.

Everyone who said these are different apps is absolutely right... there's no comparison! The only thing PictureSwitch has going for it is its handy display of a picture thumbnail in the top menu. If you have a small collection of desktop pictures, and you don't know the picture by name, I can see why you might want to pay $10 for PictureSwitch.

On the other hand, I couldn't get the program to actually change my desktop picture! I even went and fiddled with the Apple pref pane, and made sure no other desktop-mod programs were running... the desktop picture just wouldn't change! (However, I had no trouble firing up PictureSwitcher and asking it to change my desktop.) To me, this is a big reliability problem. (I'm on 10.4.9, PowerMac G5 Quad) Just to be sure, I went to the PictureSwitch info page and carefully followed the instructions, including its list of do's and dont's.

Beyond the previews, PictureSwitcher has it all over PictureSwitch. Here are its advantages--features you can't get in PictureSwitch:

Unlimited folders. PictureSwitcher only lets you define one desktop picture folder, just like Apple's desktop pic pref pane. As I noted in the review I linked earlier, Leopard corrects this problem.
Browse unlimited folders in the main menu. No, you can't get preview thumbnails here, but you certainly can make selections without opening the preview window if you know the picture's name.
Browse iPhoto library. A huge advantage, in my book. If you have albums defined in iPhoto, you can quickly select one in the main menu and run a slideshow on your desktop.
Customize slideshow speed. Apple's pref pane only allows certain presets for the interval between changes in your desktop picture. PictureSwitcher lets you define a custom value here. I've used this to nearly simulate an animation by setting the variable to 0.1 seconds.
Preview window with larger thumbnails and preview feature. PictureSwitcher's preview window is actually much handier and more powerful than the one in Apple's pref pane. Yes, it takes a while to draw the thumbnails if you've got a lot of them. But it's handy to be able to preview the picture and click the mouse to be back at the preview viewer.

Almost 'nuff said. The only last advantage--again, a big one to me--is that PictureSwitcher is free. The only negative I've found over more than a year of use is that with a large collection of pictures, it can take PictureSwitcher quite a while to finish initializing itself. Once it does, however, peformance in managing my desktop pictures is very snappy. It helps to organize your large desktop picture collection into smaller subfolders so the preview window draws its large thumbnails more quickly.

I have tested PictureSwitch on several machines, PPC and Intel, going back to Mac OS X 10.3.9 and have not witnessed the problem with the desktop picture not changing.

The program has been in use by many other people,none of which seem to have this problem, and it was just reveiwed on Softonic which gave it 4 out of 5 stars. Over at VersionTracker that latest version received a 5/5 star rating.

Technical issues are best handled by personal email, so email us and maybe we can help you resolve this issue.

Right. Mentioning the technical problem wasn't the point of the review, actually. I was explaining why in my opinion PictureSwitcher is a better product and a better value. Most likely, Picture Switch is having a conflict with one of the InputManagers I use, or perhaps with Application Enhancer. However, even if it were working flawlessly, I wouldn't be tempted to pay $10 for it when PictureSwitcher does so much more and is free.
Regards, Leland

P.S. You do have several other excellent products that I use. :-) And I highly recommend your excellent Icon2Image, which I use daily myself.

Thanks for recommending Icon2Image, another update is coming shortly.

As for the continuing debate regarding Picture Switcher and PictureSwitch... (the similarity of names is peculiar. But if you look at the version history on VersionTracker you'll see PictureSwitch came out first.)

First, I am not going to knock the other product because I don't believe in downgrading the hard work of people, especially to promote my stuff. But, they aren't the same. Personally I think he/she should charge money for the product. And, I think the whole debate here boils down to the idea of free software, which I rarely believe in.

PictureSwitch hasn't been updated for a while because I am not the one who wrote it and the author has been busy at school. But the author of it has resumed development of the product and with my help and suggestions I suspect that the product will reveal some tempting features in the future. And as I said upgrades are always free, so anyone who likes the current features better, such as the display of the image in the menu, will receive them without needing to dole out more money.

Finally, the product is bundled with some other software. Interested users just need to visit the PictureSwtich home page to see what they are.