According to a Google+ post by Vic Gundotra, VP at Google, the official Google+ app for iOS should be rolling out "in the next few hours." The app is actually available now, at the iTunes App Store.
Google+, Google's contender in the Social Network war, was released only a few weeks ago and is already garnering millions of users and critical acclaim. The question of whether or not it can beat Facebook is on everybody's minds, but it's way too soon to know for sure. However, getting a timely release of an official iOS app is definitely a step in the right direction. It's certainly the most successful social release by Google since they tried and failed (in most places) to create a social space for themselves with the ill-fated Orkut. A few more flops down the line, and it looks like Google might actually be getting its act together on this important front.
We haven't seen any word about a Google+ iPad app, but we're pretty sure that will be soon to follow. Facebook took its sweet time releasing an official iPad app, and Google will certainly want to cash in on that shortcoming. Google+ has tried to find ways to let people import their contacts and social connections from services like Google, but Facebook has always been conservative about letting their data go to other companies, and has tried to block Google from taking their data (and possibly users).
Update: It appears Google has mistakenly released the test version of the app for around 2 hours after the launch.
As Punit Soni of Google+ points out:
We discovered an issue with the version of the iPhone Google+ App that was on the App Store. When we launched, the App Store started serving a previous test version of the App which didn't have the stability and fixes that the latest version had. It started serving the correct version a little later. If you downloaded within the first 1 hour 40 mins, you may have downloaded the older test version.
To check which version you are running:
- Click on the gear icon on the top left of your App's homescreen and look right above the Help button, the version number of the App should be: 1.0.1.1809
- If that is not the version number, then please uninstall and reinstall by clicking on the link below: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google/id447119634?
52 Comments - Add comment