Mobile apps are essential to the whole social networking experience. Think about Facebook and Twitter: Mobile apps are the most convenient way to check in on what's happening, and just as quickly check out. Now that Google has released a mobile app for Google+ (free), available for Android phones and iPhones and iPodTouches (iOS5 is not yet supported, though), the social network itself is much more usable.
Part of this success comes from the design. Less screen space means every inch of it has to be use effectively. If you've ever felt that Google was too sparse with its designs on the Web, you might see Google+ as a revelation in Google UI. The app is clean and easy to navigate without too many menus and unnecessary words cluttering the screen.
How to Get Google+ Mobile App
In its first day on the market, the app isn't easy-as-pie to find, especially when searching the App Store from an iPhone. You'll have better luck downloading it through iTunes or the Android marketplace directly and dropping it onto your mobile device the next time you sync it. Alternatively, you can try getting it through a QR code provided by Google.
Once you find and install the free app, just sign in using your Google account. You'll have the option to enable or disable push notifications. Note that you must already have Google+ access in order to use the app, so if you haven't received an invitation yet, hang tight until you do.
Design
Like to Facebook's mobile app, the mobile version of Google+ orients you with a landing screen that shows the main components in a grid, their icons and single-word descriptors helping you choose how you'll use the app.
Google+'s icons are not yet as well known as Facebook's, so the names printed below them help: Stream, Huddle, Photos, Profile, and Circles. If you didn't guess what you can do by the name of the tool, at least you'll be mildly intrigued to dive in and find out.
Features
Any social networking user will be familiar with words like "stream" (updates from your contacts), "profile" (information about you) and "photos." And if you've used the Google+ site, you've likely already established Circles, or subsets of your connections, grouped by whatever classification you want to create, such as close friends, co-workers, extended family, and so forth.
Notably missing in the mobile app is the Hangout feature, or video group chat, which is Web-only. Replacing it is Huddle, a group instant messaging tool. To use Google+'s Huddle, select Huddle and click the speech bubble icon at the top right to start a new chat. You can invite individuals to group chat with you, or an entire Circle. As people are invited, their profile pictures appear in a strip at the top, giving you the ability to quickly see who's there. Six images fit easily in that banner at the top, and when more people are invited, the strip become scrollable. This visual presentation of who has been invited to a Huddle is excellent.
However, anyone who joins the Huddle can invite other people to it. In other words, just because you are the initiator of a Huddle doesn't mean you have administrative control over who's allowed to participate. Those who joined through you can invited their own friends and connections into the Huddle without your consent. And once people have been invited to a Huddle, regardless of whether they've actually joined, you can't delete them from it. It's easy to imagine chats getting out of hand, and parents may shudder at the thought of just who might lurking among the friends of a friend.
The Photos section in Google+ contains more than you might think. Photos are sectioned off into four groups: "From your circles" (pictures your friends have shared via Google+), "Photos of you," "Your albums," and "From your phone."
As you browse images, the mobile app puts thumbnail images into old school, Polaroid-looking frames. If people have commented on an image, the number of comments appears in the thumbnail. That's all well and good, but the wealth of content really comes from people who have had Google accounts for a long time. All the public images that I've ever added to both Picasa and Google Blogger show up in my area of "Your albums." I rediscovered many pictures I had completely forgotten I had, some of them dating back four years. Perhaps this was Google's solution for making sure that its new social network had a lot of content at launch, but it threw me for a loop to find all these forgotten photos suddenly public and in front of a brand new audience. I asked a colleague to verify which images of mine he could see from his Google+ account; he saw all my public Picasa pictures, but not the ones from Blogger (even though my blog is public). If you don't remember what photos you've uploaded to Picasa and made public,
Managing Friends
The ease with which you can manage Circles from a smartphone is shocking. Google has laid out the app in such a way that you can scroll through a long list of possible connections—some of whom you'll know, and some complete strangers (à la Twitter's suggestions for whom to follow)—and add them to existing Circles or new ones that you can create on the spot.
What I love about Circles is how they let you filter your stream instantly. Twitter lets you do this with lists, which I use and also adore. In Facebook, you can hide individuals so that they never appear in your stream, but you can't customize the stream to let you see only updates from selected people. Google+ give you the best of both worlds' here, the richer content that tends to come out of Facebook, with threaded comments and such, and the "lists" ability you get from Twitter.
At the very bottom of the main screen is a Notifications button box containing a number. The box is gray if it's 0 and red if it's 1 or greater. Nearly identical to Facebook's mobile Notification feature, Google+'s pops up a screen that you can refresh by dragging down and releasing. It lists all kinds of notices, like when you've been added to someone's Google+ connections and when someone has commented on your posts.
Mobile and Social
The Google+ mobile app works fairly well due to its smart design and comprehensible interface. Until other Spartan Google products, the mobile app aims for spacial balance. Google made a wise decision by launching the website first and rolling out the mobile app a few days later for its new social network. It gave some users (those lucky enough to get early invites) a chance to figure out the basics of the system—and then a few weeks later, an opportunity to play with something new, thereby keeping their interest piqued. After a few more releases, I'm sure some of the app's less stellar points—no support for iOS5, inability to have administrative controls in a Huddle—will be mitigated. The Google+ app is helping strum more interest in the social network, which is exactly what it needs to stay active and interesting.
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