Google+ for iOS Updated with Profile Redesign and Photo Filters

Unfortunately, only two of contacts use Google+ (and none of my friends that work for Google), and much more sparsely than Facebook or Twitter.

Stop this Instagram BS.

Does anyone still use Google+?

Not sure if people use this, I have an account but literally no friends use it. All on Facebook or Twitter.

Awesome, so many improvements that no one uses. I'm on Google+ because i'm forced to because i have a gmail account. Don't use it ever.

Oddly enough, I logged into my G+ yesterday for the first time in months. That's usually how it goes for me. Use it for a day or two, then go months without even remembering it exists.

Google+ should try to redefine how a social network is used rather than replicate and combine current social networks. That's not how you surpass market leaders.

I, and about 10 friends use it. But only because Google+ ties in real nicely with Google Events, Communities, and Docs, which we use to set up our game nights and gaming convention trips.

Other than that, we all use FB and Twitter.

Sorry, I cancelled my Google+ account shortly after the demise of Reader was announced.

Doesn't make any difference though, this service is fine but no one I know uses it.

pgiguere1 said:

Google+ should try to redefine how a social network is used rather than replicate and combine current social networks. That's not how you surpass market leaders.

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+1.

Google should instead try to build on its strength, such as taking Gmail to the next level. As much as we all hate email, it is the oldest online social network around. And as Mailbox and others demonstrate, I think there are ways to make email work.

Instead, Google let Gmail stagnate and it has become a bloated mess with numerous usability issues.

What would it take to actually bring down FaceBook? How did it even manage to get so many members?

You don't actually have to know someone to use Google+. That's what Facebook is for. I use it to follow people with the same interests as I, in this case, Photography and Jazz music. Lot's of great people to follow and discussions to partake in. Of course I'd love to have my friends on G+ so I can rid myself of FB altogether, but that's not going to happen. I love this update.

IMO, Google+ fails only because Facebook is too well entrenched. In a way, it's sort of stupid because from my experience, it's way better. It's strange why google can't get people to use it. It's like the whole world is driving around in broken down 80's Hyundai Pony hatchbacks, and here's someone saying, "come get your free beemer--got one for your friends, too" and everyone's like... nah... everyone's driving this POS... I think I'll keep driving it too.

But then, it is a *social* network. Makes sense, I suppose. I keep trying to coax my friends and family over, but they have the same issue. Leaving FB means leaving their social network. Ah well.

AppleInLVX said:

IMO, Google+ fails only because Facebook is too well entrenched. In a way, it's sort of stupid because from my experience, it's way better. It's strange why google can't get people to use it. It's like the whole world is driving around in broken down 80's Hyundai Pony hatchbacks, and here's someone saying, "come get your free beemer--got one for your friends, too" and everyone's like... nah... everyone's driving this POS... I think I'll keep driving it too.

But then, it is a *social* network. Makes sense, I suppose. I keep trying to coax my friends and family over, but they have the same issue. Leaving FB means leaving their social network. Ah well.

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I agree. I actually really enjoy what Google+ has to offer for a social network experience and the improvements they continue making. I use it a lot for family "Hangouts" and it's much easier to share family pictures and videos privately. However, that's about all I do with it so far, since most people I know don't use it. For those thing above that I do use it for, it integrates very well into Gmail, so you can reply to posts as though you are replying to email... pretty cool stuff really. I love seeing G+ updates and hope they slowly take on more users as people look for Facebook alternatives. Google isn't backing down with this one.

that photo on the left looks as if they just finished a harlem shake dance or something

I use G+ with a number of friends scattered across the country. Very few of us use FaceBook. I have a FB account, but never use it.

If Google wanted more people to use G+, they should add the "Messenger" function back into the iPad version. They had it and then removed it in an "upgrade". Certainly would be a lot more useful than photo editing or communities options...

AppleInLVX said:

IMO, Google+ fails only because Facebook is too well entrenched. In a way, it's sort of stupid because from my experience, it's way better. It's strange why google can't get people to use it. It's like the whole world is driving around in broken down 80's Hyundai Pony hatchbacks, and here's someone saying, "come get your free beemer--got one for your friends, too" and everyone's like... nah... everyone's driving this POS... I think I'll keep driving it too.

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Your analogy is a bit flawed. This isn't the issue of which is better. Google+ may indeed be better but it would be like driving a BMW that can only be driven to limited destinations. Most people would rather drive a Hyundai that can go everywhere.

What Google should've done is offer different paradigm for social network, such as what Twitter did (which is far more useful for following people/organization that you are not friends with).

Now Google should work on unifying all of their storage space across products.

I find it ridiculous you get 10GB's of Gmail space, but only 5GB's for Google Drive. It should be the other way around.

Then you get a ridiculous 1GB of space for photos (which will easily eat up 1GB) with Picasa, but I think Picasa is dead now, since it redirects me to Google+, but at least the photos are free to store unlimited as long as you keep them 2048 pixels on the longest side (but even then I think Google automatically resizes them for you).

Still even more ridiculous is you can store 20,000 mp3/aac files for music in Google Music. That works out to about 160GB's!! of files that you can store for free.

Don't get me started on unlimited YouTube videos that obviously take up precious gigabytes.

So why in the world does Google make me pay for Google Drive? Why do they limit my GMail space? Google Drive should hold ALL my files, not all these individual silos with arbitrary limits that are widely different depending on what product you're using. This is why Dropbox has my $99 and not Google.

nutmac said:

Your analogy is a bit flawed. This isn't the issue of which is better. Google+ may indeed be better but it would be like driving a BMW that can only be driven to limited destinations. Most people would rather drive a Hyundai that can go everywhere.

What Google should've done is offer different paradigm for social network, such as what Twitter did (which is far more useful for following people/organization that you are not friends with).

Click to expand...

I agree with where you're going, and I'm not going to take the metaphor any farther than to say I don't think it's really that G+ is limited in any way by way of destinations. It's just that no one's using the roads. In many other contexts, that would actually be *preferable* to people, but the problem is that if it took a couple years to get everyone on one system, then inertia will keep them there, hedonists that we all are.

Hmm... I wonder if there's a way that Google can employ the same tactic that Apple has. That is, there was a time where the world was all PC with a fraction of users on Macs. That's totally changing these days. Google needs some kind of iPod-like feature to lure people to the site. But I guess that's comparing apples to oranges.

pgiguere1 said:

Google+ should try to redefine how a social network is used rather than replicate and combine current social networks. That's not how you surpass market leaders.

Click to expand...

So true!

I really don't like google+ because its hard to understand a new concept when almost everyone on the face of the earth is already on Facebook and your already used to that..

AppleInLVX said:

I agree with where you're going, and I'm not going to take the metaphor any farther than to say I don't think it's really that G+ is limited in any way by way of destinations. It's just that no one's using the roads. In many other contexts, that would actually be *preferable* to people, but the problem is that if it took a couple years to get everyone on one system, then inertia will keep them there, hedonists that we all are.

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The ultimate intended goal of social network is to share with intended set of people. If none (or most) of your contacts do not use Google+, there's very little reason to use it in the first place. Some may indeed prefer to use Google+ to share with very little or no one at all (a personal journal). But if a road isn't used by many cars, it is ultimately a failure and is destined to wither away without continuous funding. As Google demonstrated with Google Reader, it isn't shy about pulling the plug.

Razeus said:

You don't actually have to know someone to use Google+. That's what Facebook is for. I use it to follow people with the same interests as I, in this case, Photography and Jazz music. Lot's of great people to follow and discussions to partake in. Of course I'd love to have my friends on G+ so I can rid myself of FB altogether, but that's not going to happen. I love this update.

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Except you can "Follow" people on Facebook now too. So there really is no point in Google+ and regular people don't use it because the only people on there is bloggers and business trying to advertise to people and boost their Google search rankings. Google Plus is a barren wasteland.

newagemac said:

Except you can "Follow" people on Facebook now too. So there really is no point in Google+ and regular people don't use it because the only people on there is bloggers and business trying to advertise to people and boost their Google search rankings. Google Plus is a barren wasteland.

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Some people like to keep certain things separate. There's no reason my friends should see all my comments about my photography hobby. I don't know about you, but my G+ is filled with new content that's relevant and interesting. Google+ is what you make it.