Live data from Hacker News

Google+ for iOS is out

itunes.apple.com

51–60 of 125 posts

Re: Google+ for iOS is out

#51
post #40
post #25

Can't believe they went for the same Facebook style launcher, when it's a) used by Facebook b) only got 5 icons c) it's explicitly regarded as bad UI design by Apple (at this WWDC).

"it's explicitly regarded as bad UI design by Apple" I find that hard to believe considering that launcher concept is implemented by Apple in the iOS home screen.

One aspect of this is that it is easy to abuse. Three20 (the framework currently backing the iOS app) has an implementation of the launcher control but doesn't provide support for the zooming launch animation.

As a result, we've seen apps like rdio using the launcher in a way that goes against the user's expectations of how a launcher should work. Instead of zooming the controller in from the center of the screen, the controller gets pushed onto a navigation stack. In rdio's case, they should have built a simple table view with each 'sub-application' having its own row. Tapping one of those rows would then push the controller onto the navigation stack in the same way that it currently does with the launcher.

-- From a holistic user experience applications "spring forth" from the system launcher, creating a consistent feeling of two functional modes in the operating system. The first being finding and launching applications, the second being using the launched application. Introducing a third layer of launched sub-applications complicates that model, oftentimes unnecessarily.

Re: Google+ for iOS is out

#54
post #4

Interesting. I'm running iOS5 beta3, and when I attempt to hit the Stream, the app dies. Does this happen for anyone else? EDIT: Also when I click on someones profile in the 'cirlces' list. I can't really give any impressions on the app without these things working, but viewing photos and photo comments feels nice and responsive.

I'm running 4.3.3 and it has crashed twice on me in about 5 minutes. If this were another company, I would delete the app and move on. The quality today is pretty bad. I hope they've already submitted a release with bug fixes to Apple.

Re: Google+ for iOS is out

#55
post #4

Interesting. I'm running iOS5 beta3, and when I attempt to hit the Stream, the app dies. Does this happen for anyone else? EDIT: Also when I click on someones profile in the 'cirlces' list. I can't really give any impressions on the app without these things working, but viewing photos and photo comments feels nice and responsive.

I am on iOS 5b2, and both the stream and the profile cause the app to die.

Re: Google+ for iOS is out

#56

Can any experienced iOS developers please tell me if it is really 'that' hard to make an app iPod Touch compatible? I mean, come on, you just alienate a ton of users without implementing iPod or iPad compatibility...

Depends, the 1st generation iPod touch is stuck on 3.1.3 which means you lose out on the newer, much easier to use and less buggy APIs

Re: Google+ for iOS is out

#57

Can any experienced iOS developers please tell me if it is really 'that' hard to make an app iPod Touch compatible? I mean, come on, you just alienate a ton of users without implementing iPod or iPad compatibility...

I'm not a dev, but I'd actually be afraid of releasing an app for ipod touch for something so reliant on internet access purely because of the low ratings it would probably get from clueless ipod touch owners...

I suspect this is a big part of the decision. It certainly would be if I were making the call ... if the UX isn't perfect, you're going to get idiots giving it 1-star reviews and generally complaining. I'm not sure I'd want to release anything that didn't have a standalone/offline mode for the Touch, just because I suspect that users operate them out of range from WiFi much of the time. (Or at least I see users playing with them where there isn't Wifi pretty often.)

Maybe someone will find an unofficial way of easily getting it onto the Touch ... that would make users who really know what they're doing happy, while also preventing the sort of people who are going to give it a 1-star rating when it doesn't work in the subway from installing it.

Re: Google+ for iOS is out

#58

Can any experienced iOS developers please tell me if it is really 'that' hard to make an app iPod Touch compatible? I mean, come on, you just alienate a ton of users without implementing iPod or iPad compatibility...

iPad is 'that' hard because it is non-trivial to take advantage of the new screen real estate. Often-times you must implement a completely new navigation model because the stock split view controller is rarely the navigation model you want to use. iPod touch is generally easier. It usually comes down to gracefully degrading features. Much care must also be taken to ensure that the app performs well on the iPod touch…

Probably has a hard requirement for GPS for checkins, which the iPod doesn't have.

Re: Google+ for iOS is out

#59
I'm using 2-factor authentication. Couldn't create an application password. Had to use my main pwd+token which is only good for 30 days. Shouldn't they allow the use of a 2-factor application password for an iOS app?

Re: Google+ for iOS is out

#60
post #4

Interesting. I'm running iOS5 beta3, and when I attempt to hit the Stream, the app dies. Does this happen for anyone else? EDIT: Also when I click on someones profile in the 'cirlces' list. I can't really give any impressions on the app without these things working, but viewing photos and photo comments feels nice and responsive.

https://plus.google.com/111499908439497508351/posts/dESepcDj...

"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. "

Post reply on HN