Google has been trying, trying very hard, to get you to jump on board with their Google+ social sharing. A lot of the big names in just about every industry have dipped a toe into the Google+ waters. A quick search will result in names you will know. Digging a bit deeper, you may find very little quantity of posts behind that quality of names.
The biggest change to the iPhone app for Google+ was making the string of posts from folks in your ‘Circles’ more graphical. Gone is the headline text, small icon, and teaser text on a plain white background. Now, the posting person’s name and image appear larger, with the headline or teaser text over the top of the key image of the post. This means that searching visually for text your interested in is more difficult, but swiping through the posts and seeing related images is quicker. It’s a interesting path change from a company that has the simplest of Search starting and listing pages to now a almost completely graphical UI in their mobile social app.
In the update prior to this one, a occasional issue was introduced where uploading photos in a post wasn’t always successful. Photos can also be uploaded to libraries on Google+ that you create. A feature that was introduced between the last and this update was the ability to have photos automatically saved from your iPhone to Google as a cloud storage option. This feature is similar to Apple’s Photo Steam, except with Photo Stream the photos sync back to your desktop while with Google they stay on their storage… a couple gigs are provided at no charge, adding more carries charges.
When viewing your photo libraries on Google through Google+, you can choose a single photo to look at comments others have made (those you chose to share). Swiping a photo takes you to the next in the series.
Photos are grouped by Google+ into areas that are similar to what you would see on other social share services. Multiple photos can be attached a post, which you can make viewable to no one, your friend’s circles or the general ‘public’.
