Google+ app updated, redesigned, adds cool features
The Google+ application has always been mostly a letdown for me. It's been ugly, slow, and smelled funny. But that all seems to have changed with an update released today.
The one thing that Google+ had as a social network that was incredibly useful and nobody else had was the Hangout option. Unfortunately there was never a way until today to initiate one from the Android app. That's been remedied and you can now start a hangout and then go do other things while you wait for people to join.
The stream has been redesigned to look wonderful too. Stream entries with pictures preview the image with the text overlaid. If you mess up a post, you can go back and edit it later, which is good for those of us who are not so great at getting things right the first time.
The only complaint I have about the new Plus app is you only get to see the first couple of lines of any entry that contains a photo. Entries without photos display about six lines of text with a prompt for more. You can think of it as picture entries look like tweets, and text entries like a Facebook status update.
They put a serious amount of thought and work into making this a visually striking and useful social networking application. Now if they can just get people to use Google+.
Download: Google Play
