Today the folks from Mountain View have just detailed the latest update coming to an App store near you for their popular Google+ social network app. Last year Google purchased Snapseed, a Instagram competitor, and later released the app for Android. Now today they’re integrating its camera and photo filter features to Google+ for iOS, as well as tons of other changes detailed below.
Obviously we’ll focus on the Android side of things, as both platforms are receiving a sizable update today. For Android Google’s + update will be focusing on profiles, communities, and posts – while iOS is focused on Snapseed integration. For Android Google’s worked really hard on the “little things” because they matter, and are making little changes to polish the entire experience. Here’s what’s new for Android:
– Posts include more text up front—from the original message, and from comments
– Tapping video, photo or link attachments takes you directly to a watch page, lightbox or website
– Image previews are rarely cropped, so you’ll see portrait photos (for instance) in all their glory
– Key actions like +1, reshare and comment are displayed more prominently in each post
– You can swipe through photo albums inline
They’re basically polishing and improving every aspect of our news and social home stream, but they are all small improvements rather than anything major. It looks like we’ll be getting more text from posts, larger and better HD images, and being able to swipe through images inline will be nice.
Then Google’s also added plenty for location data, as well as the newish Google+ Communities. We’ve always been able to share where we live, but now we can share our actual location – throughout the day – if we chose. Obviously with tons of limits on who see’s what, and plenty of privacy features. I’ll pass on this.
Last but certainly one I’m happy to see is more settings and options for Google+ Communities. Before we continue you’ll want to join the official Android Community: Community by clicking here. Today’s update allows users to control the level of volume the community posts show in your regular home stream, invite to community from mobile, and finally the option to share to community on Android. Then Communities also received some moderator and member search/ban features for those pesky people you’d like to remove from the group.
The app should be available later today from the Play Store and you can learn all the details right from Google at the via link below.
[via Google]
