Register Log in

Infinite Loop / The Apple Ecosystem

Hands-on with the native Google+ app for iPhone

The native Google+ app for iPhone is now on the App Store. Ars gave it a spin …

Three weeks after the public coming-out of Google's new social networking initiative, Google+, Apple has finally approved the native Google+ app for iOS devices. The free app is only compatible with iPhones though—not only is the Google+ app not configured for iPad screens, we're already hearing reports from readers that it straight up won't load on the iPad, nor will it load on the iPod touch.

This is a confusing decision, and Google's response to our inquiries about it didn't answer the "why." The company did, however, passively indicate that it's working on separate apps for those platforms, so it's possible that we may see multiple versions of Google+ for iOS soon: "We are working quickly to roll out the Google+ mobile app to as many platforms and devices as possible. Today we have only announced availability for the iPhone," Google spokesperson Katie Watson told Ars.

Device compatibility is somewhat of a major issue for us iOS users, but we'll put it aside for now to focus on the 1.0 app's functionality. It's worth noting that the Google+ mobile site works on all devices (iPod touch included!), and is almost perfectly fine for the iPhone as well, save for the lack of image uploading ability. But Google didn't just add the ability to upload images and call it a native app—the app available in the App Store works in slightly different ways than the mobile Web app, and we like what we see so far.

What you can do with this app

The Google+ home screen cuts to the chase and only includes the most relevant items (Huddles notwithstanding)

The Google+ home screen presents pretty much the only things you are likely to find yourself trying to do when you launch the app: check your stream, see recent Huddles that people in your circles have held, look at photos that your circles have uploaded, look at your own profile, manage your circles, and see your notifications (at the bottom). Notice that Google does not include any sort of reference to Sparks, a strange feature that exists in the full-fledged Web version that (according to my very scientific public surveys) barely anybody understands. Because of this, we're glad it's not acknowledged in the iPhone app—more visual space and manpower can be dedicated to more important and easily usable features.

You can swipe your finger left or right from the main stream to see posts made nearby or from the general public

When you tap on the Stream icon, the app takes you straight to your unfiltered stream, just like the Web version. Here you can scroll through your contacts' posts and tap on ones you want to +1 (the Google+ equivalent to Facebook's "Like") or comment on. (If you accidentally +1 something that you later think is lame, you can tap the button again to remove your +1.)

Comment on your friends' photos like you would on the Web

The same applies to photos that you tap on (either from the Photo interface or the main Stream)—you can comment on them directly from the photo view, but strangely, you can't +1 them.

The main appeal here is the ability to attach photos from your phone, which you can't do from the mobile Web interface

And of course, you can make new posts easily by tapping the pencil icon in the top right. The app will ask you if you want to add your location, and if you agree, it will geotag the post (a tag that can be removed later if you'd like). From here, you can alter which circles will see your post and also attach images from your iPhone's camera library or simply take a new photo. We find this posting interface to be well designed, and a lot more usable than the mobile Web interface.

What's fun about the main Stream view is that you can swipe your finger left or right on the screen to see different streams—if you swipe to the left (so that a new screen comes in on the right), you'll see posts made nearby (as determined by the geotags on those posts and your own location). You can swipe to the left again to see all incoming posts—this is essentially the equivalent of Twitter's public stream.

But what if you only want to see posts made by your individual circles, not all the circles all mashed together, and certainly not posts made by the unwashed public? Strangely, it doesn't seem you can do that from the Stream view—rather, you have to go into your circles from the home screen in order to see circle-specific posts.


When you tap on a circle name, you can see a list of the users in it as well as their posts

Going back to the home screen of the app, the Circles interface simultaneously allows you to manage your circles and view only the posts made by people in those circles. Tapping on one of those circle descriptors (pictured above) brings you to a list of people who are in that circle—if you tap on a specific name, the app takes you to that user's profile where you can view his or her posts and see which circles that user is in.

You can see which circles a user belongs to by going to his or her profile

You can see above that I have our Editor-in-Chief Ken Fisher in two circles: one for Ars staffers and one for friends. When I tap on that button, the app allows me to select or de-select (as the case may be) which other circles I want to add him to, or I can create a new circle.

Edit your circles while on the go

Being able to edit your circles on the fly and in an easy-to-use manner is a huge plus, and the functionality is certainly less janky than the mobile Web app's version, which has issues loading certain elements of the page when it doesn't have a perfect signal.

But enough about managing my circles—I just want to read! When viewing the list of your circles, tap on one and look at the menu options across the bottom. From here, you can view posts made within that circle or photos posted within that circle. If I go to my Chicago circle, I'll see only posts made by the people I put there, and can interact with those posts in exactly the same manner described above:

You can view posts from specific circles by navigating there from the Circle option on the home screen


Both the iPhone application and the mobile Web application lack a feature found in the full Web app: group video chats, known as Hangouts. To attempt to compensate for this, the mobile clients support Huddles; text-based group chats.

As was the case with the Android client, Huddles currently suffer from a lack of wide support. Neither the mobile Web app nor the desktop Web app support them, so ability to participate is restricted to those using the iPhone and Android clients. If these constraints are accepted, they do work—it's just not clear why their availability should be so restricted, nor why they need to be a completely separate feature from Hangouts—though Hangouts are video-oriented, they do include support for text chat too.


Finally, there are the notifications. First, it's worth noting that I'm not particularly fond of the Notifications menu on the full-fledged Web app, and the mobile Web app is only slightly better. In this sense, the iPhone app's Notifications list is very similar to the mobile Web app, and it's OK—the notifications themselves aren't super descriptive, but you can tap on them to go to the post or person in question and interact with those posts (or people) as you see fit.

When you tap on one notification, the rest stay bold

On the upside, the iPhone app has one major advantage over the Web app in this area: when you tap on one notification, the entire menu doesn't clear out and un-bold so you lose your place. You can see above that I tapped on the notification that Victor Talha commented on a post that I commented on, but did not yet tap on any of the others in this view. This seems like an obvious UI decision because it is, and I can only pray to the Google gods that there will be some way to deal with this on the "real" Web app soon enough.

That's about it!

The Google+ iPhone app is simple, and we like it that way. It allows you access to most of the functionality that you would ever want from Google+ for while on the go: making posts, socializing with friends, editing circles, and posting pictures. The Huddle functionality could use some improvement if it wants to actually be appealing, and for now, we're glad Sparks isn't even in the picture.

Also, it's worth noting that we noticed that some users were complaining (on Google+ of course) that the iPhone app seems to crash often, but we didn't run into that problem even once during our testing. And if you're one of the people who still doesn't understand why Google+ even exists or how it fits into anyone's social networking world, worry not—I have an upcoming feature for Ars that discusses what the service is and isn't, and how it compares to the social networking wunderkinds Twitter and Facebook. So stay tuned for that.

If you're already on Google+ and you're an iPhone owner, we highly recommend checking out the native app and seeing how you feel about it compared to the mobile Web app. Is there certain functionality that you wish was there and isn't? Or do you hate how certain elements were implemented?

Expand full story

You must to comment.

Need to register for a new account?

If you don't have an account yet it's free and easy.