Google+ iPhone app launched and immediately faces litany of complaints

A major aspect of a social network’s success, it can be argued, depends on the ability of users to access it on the go. Twitter, first launched as a mobile service, and Facebook have recognised this with a variety mobile apps and a mobi site.

Now, the latest kid on the social networking block, Google+ has joined the party with the launch of its official iPhone app.

In keeping with the thought behind G+, Google describes the app as “making sharing the right things with the right people a lot simpler”.

According to the product information the app — officially called “Google for Mobile” – is so far compatible with only the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4 and requires iOS 4.0 or later to run. It does not, however, work on the latest beta of iOS5.

This has led to an immediate slew of complaints amongst early adopters of iOS5, which was launched at Apple’s recent Worldwide Developers’ Conference as reported by Gearburn.

As Mashable points out in it’s initial review of the app, other complaints have rolled in.

Robert Scoble, US tech evangelist, on his Google+ account had a list of complaints:

1. It doesn’t keep me logged in. Even though I had told it to. Oh, wait, now it is.
2. I don’t see a way to upload a photo, like the Android app has. Nevermind, I found that, you have to click on the photos app where the camera icon is very small.
3. It frequently freezes on me.
4. It has crashed twice so far. UPDATE: Six times.
5. No way to share.

However, Punit Soni, Google’s lead Product Manager for mobile — also on G+ — was quick to respond saying that Apple had made an error, loading an incorrect version of the app on iTunes.

Soni also felt compelled to write a post answering the issues Scoble had raised in his. The post also attempted to answer general complaints regarding the app promising fixes and thanking users for their patience,support, and feedback.

Like Apple, Google is a company which generates an immense amount of goodwill from both average users and die-hard fans. With sentiments like that of Ken Patterson who, in giving his customer review on the app on iTunes, wrote “This is the first iPhone app that I’ve come across that I couldn’t load on the iPad… Google, you disappoint me — I thought you were going to be better than FaceBook, but you’re making the same mistakes they made”, however, any hopes that Google may have that the introduction of a mobile component will introduce the “migration incentive” a Memeburn contributor raised as an issue for Google+, should be questioned.