Android users have been playing around with a Google+ app for a while as iPhone users sat around feeling left out. Well, no more of that! The Google+ iPhone app is finally available now.
The Google+ app can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store and — based on the quick trial run we gave it — it's pretty decent. (Though the fact that Google pushed out an update for the app already does leave us wondering what sorts of undiscovered technical bugs could be lurking underneath our fingertips.)
The app has a clean interface and is definitely designed with the iPhone in mind. Google+ has basically been stripped of most of the animations and effects we see when we access it from our browsers and instead been simplified for quick and easy mobile access.
We found that content loads reasonably reliably most of the time when using the app — which could be one of the bugs Google is trying to fix — and that there are occasional slow downs. But for the most part, the app appears to be no less reliable than its Facebook counterpart, for example.
It's fairly easy to adjust to the app's interface, as it is arranged in a intuitive manner. Notifications feel the same, though now you can choose to receive push alerts on your iPhone when there's some sort of exciting activity on Google +. The main content stream also feels quite familiar, as do individual posts. You can switch between the different sections with a quick swipe of your finger.
It's the Circles aspect of Google+ which has been seen one of the biggest redesigns for the sake of the app — it's been rearranged and simplified a great deal — but it works just as well as the browser version. Huddles, photo albums, and other Google+ features have similarly been toned down, but remain easy and convenient to use.
There are little annoyances which come with the app though — for example, you can't hit the "+1" button on a post via the main content stream and instead have to open the post and hit the button there — but overall we're satisfied with what we're getting for now.
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Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She's obsessed with Twitter and loves to be liked on Facebook. Oh, and she can be found on Google+, too