Everyone seems to think the recent Google+ 2.0.0 for iPhone update is the best thing since the sliced bread. I, however, have a very different opinion of the updated app: It is terrible in general and provides an especially awful experience on an iPad.
The updated app focuses on the evolution of Google+ from a Facebook/Twitter competitor to a service that now looks more like a more social Tumblr. At least that’s what it looks like to me. I circled a couple of hundred people and entities (commercial sites). Since its launch last summer, my stream has become one that is nearly all photos and video (YouTube) links. The app’s recent update focuses on this by filling the display with these photos and videos. So, there is one post per screen now. This makes it slow to quickly browse through stream updates. The problem is compounded by the fact that Google+ does not let you view in order of recency. It bubbles up the most commented (or +1’ed) posts. To make matters even worse, the app is not a Universal one (perhaps that is too hard to do for Google+’s software developers?). So, everything looks pixelated and fuzzy an iPad.
Fortunately, there are two things going for me regarding this awful update. (1) I rarely check Google+ anymore since there is little there to read or what is there is pushed down because of its sorting by popularity instead of recency. If it wasn’t for the need to use Hangouts now and then, I would simply delete the app from my iPhone and iPad. (2) I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (read my review of it on BYTE) and Google has not seen fit to upgrade the user interface for the Android version of the app (which scales to Android tablet displays).