San Francisco — Just after a two-and-a-half-week wait, Google+, the budding social media network from the folks at Mountain View, has finally stormed Apple’s iOS platform in the form of a free app called G+.
The iPhone app for its latest social network, Google+, has finally landed in the App Store. At 11:44 AM, Vic Gundotra, who has oversees the Google+ Project, posted an update on Google+ saying, “iPhone, meet Google+…Share just the right stuff, with just the right circles. This app should be rolling out over the next few hours.”
The new app, which is a free download, is currently targeted at iPhone users. Meanwhile, it joins Google+’s Android application, giving users outside of the browser a way to keep up with happenings on the increasingly popular social network, which is still invitation-only and is operating in what the company is calling a “field trial.”
Here is the description in the store:
Google+ for mobile makes sharing the right things with the right people a lot simpler. Huddle lets you send super-fast messages to the people you care about most. And no matter where you are, the stream lets you stay in the loop about what your friends are sharing and where they are checking in.
Well! Judging by the screenshots, the application looks like an austere, more vertical version of the Web-based Google+. The Circles and the Sparks are all there.
According to TechCrunch’s, Erick Schonfeld reported that G+ landed with a bit of a rocky start. Apparently, the first iteration of the app was buggy enough that Google was forced to issue an update, which cleared things up — mostly. “After downloading the update, I could not sign in until I powered down my iPhone and re-started,” Schonfeld wrote. “But now the app is much more stable and I can actually try it out.”
Initially, Google+ received a mild reception from analysts when it was released, but millions of users have signed up in recent weeks, boosting hopes among tech bloggers and journalists that we could eventually see a real horse race between social media giant Facebook and search engine giant Google.
“So far, Facebook and Twitter have been the Dominant Duo of social media networking,” David Pogue of the New York Times wrote last week. “But Google’s less sprawling, more video-centric, better-controlled new service is already too good to ignore…. Now it is the Dominant Duo …+1.”
In addition, the news feed is somewhere between Twitter and Facebook. The indigenous version of Google+ follows similar user interface cues from Facebook’s app, featuring a home screen of sorts with different features in finger-friendly locations. It also lists the number of comments and “+1” clicks — the Google+ equivalent of Facebook “Likes.” Users can pull the stream down to refresh it, a feature that has seemingly become standard since it appeared in the Twitter app Tweetie (and is now the service’s official app).
Also included in the app are Huddles, a group chat built into Google+. It is pretty identical to the group chat app GroupMe — users can add anyone from their circles to a Huddle and use it like a typical chat app. Whenever users receive a message from a Huddle, the app automatically sends a push notification. Users can also access their circles — the equivalent of groups or friend lists — and add or delete members from within the app. They are listed in a bullet-style format instead of stylized circles like those in the Google+ mobile web app.
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Google’s new Google+ app for iOS. (Credit: Google/CNET)
Interestingly, the killer part of the Google+ app is being able to take photos and upload them to the service directly — much like the Facebook app’s killer photo uploading feature — something you can not do through Safari.
Besides, the app failed once or twice while trying to load up the photo app. The app hangs intermittently and takes anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds to be accessible again. And it seems like I’m not the only one experiencing crashes, either. “Stoked for Google+ iPhone app, bummed it crashes a ton on iOS 5,” Digg founder Kevin Rose said on Google+.
Nevertheless, the overall exposure feels great, but there are still a few kinks that keep it from going toe-to-toe with other social networking apps like Twitter and Facebook.