

Google+ Now The Top Free App In The Apple App Store - Garbage
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/20/google-now-the-top-free-app-in-the-apple-app-store/

======
mirkules
This is a really interesting relationship triangle happening at the moment.

On the one hand, you have Apple, a "traditional" hardware/software company,
whose aim is to move as many devices out the door (IIRC, hardware is their
primary revenue source with the largest margins). They do this by making
awesomely polished software that they lock to their devices.

On another hand, you have Google and Facebook, which are information
companies. Their primary goal is the collection and organization of data.
Google does this through many fields (but for the sake of this discussion,
I'll focus primarily on Android and Google+). Facebook does it through
"social."

What I find interesting first is the announcement that Apple chose Twitter for
iOS 5. From the post on betanews
([http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Why-did-Apple-
choo...](http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Why-did-Apple-choose-
Twitter-over-Facebook/1307909651)), Apple chose twitter because it wants
information to flow freely between its devices (facilitating their ultimate
goal of selling more devices).

But more so, Apple is now in a position to really hurt Facebook since Google+
came along. Since Google's goal is the free flow of information, we are
continuing to see iOS Google apps, despite the popularity of Android and the
seemingly competitive nature of Android vs. iPhone/iPad. But Apple benefits
from Facebook's demise and Google+'s openness, and Google benefits from this
because they continue to collect more information. Facebook loses in this case
since they locked themselves into a corner that they can't get out of anymore.
I think this was a well played strategic alliance on the part of Google and
Apple.

~~~
notyourwork
I have to agree with all of this. Only thing I would comment is that I
envision g+ becoming end user's social aggregator if you will. By that: End
user wants to post information to his social networks so he hops into g+ and
decides where to funnel this information. Perhaps in the future g+ will have
facebook,twitter, linkedin etc, accounts and thus you have g+ a one stop shop
for social networking which rests upon some of its own infrastructure but
mainly pushes and pulls data from other sources. We already know google is
good with managing and processing boat loads of data and social data is data
like any other.

/my two cents

The only thing I do not understand is how Apple can lock users to iTunes for
their media management, it seems analogous in more ways than not to
Microsoft's IE issues a handful of years ago. (Perhaps I am missing a key
point here, if so please comment.)

------
bennesvig
Wouldn't be surprised if they got an iPad app out before Facebook.

~~~
cryptoz
I would be surprised, actually. Their Android tablet app is absolutely
terrible (I think it's the same as the phone app, which is what makes it
terrible). I hope they do put out tablet apps, and _soon_ , but given that
they could have launched a decent Android tablet app and chose not to makes it
seem like they're delaying tablets for a while.

I could be wrong, though. I'd love to be wrong.

~~~
Jwsonic
Normally Android apps (the 'properly' written ones) use the same code base
across tablets and phones. Most of the layout is done as xml, with different
xml files loaded based on the size of the screen, resolution, etc.

That being said I checked out the Google+ app on my Xoom and it does not
appear that they included proper tablet configurations yet.

~~~
cryptoz
Yep. I'm aware that you're supposed to scale with size nicely in order to make
an app work nicely on all screen sizes. But there should be more than that. My
Xoom's camera is far better than my desktop's webcam, but the app lacks the
Hangout feature - the only part of Google+ that's really magical for me.

So the 10" tablet app has a layout designed for a 3" screen, ignores the
incredible hardware capabilities of the device (two video cameras! no video
chat?), notifications that pop up after I've seen them twice already, etc.

It's just no good at the moment, but I'm sure it will improve with time.

~~~
juliano_q
Hangouts still arent available for Google+ mobile. I they make it available
soon, Hangouts is really an awesome feature.

------
Shenglong
I don't know if this is a big deal. I've also downloaded it, but have had no
reason to even open it yet. I still doubt G+'s ability to make a significant
impact.

Duncan Stewart's retweet of Andy Levy's comment says it best: "as far as I can
tell, every post on Google+ is either something I already saw on Twitter or
something about Google+."

With that said, I think there is value. I'm more than happy to tell Google who
my friends are, if it helps them refine my searches.

~~~
cryptoz
> I still doubt G+'s ability to make a significant impact.

That's a mistake. I think it's pretty clear that Google+ is already a
successful product that's making an impact, but let's pretend for a second
that it isn't.

When Chrome launched, it had very little market share for a very long time.
However, as it slowly grew, the obvious statement to make was that as other
browsers saw it coming they quickened their pace and sped up their JavaScript
engines, hastened release cycles, etc. Even if Chrome never did attain much
market share (it did) it would have been seen by Google as a huge success very
quickly: if all other browsers are faster that's still a win for Google.

So, even if Google+ never gets significant market share (too late, within
weeks it has millions of users), it already has made an impact by providing
intense competition for Facebook.

Google even launched video chats _before_ Facebook did, showing very clearly
that in some places (new features) they are already changing the landscape of
social networking.

They already _have_ made a significant impact. And the game is just starting.

~~~
Shenglong
I don't know what Google's aim is with Google+. If they're not aiming to
replace one of the current social networks, then yeah sure, they can succeed.

Chrome was a completely different beast, and I suppose the best way to
differentiate is on brand relevance vs brand preference. IE and FF were still
browsers. No one said "go internet explorer" - but people do say "Oh yeah, go
Facebook me" or "yeah Facebook that kay?" When I think of sharing something
online, I think Facebook or Twitter, and not "social network".

Yes, Google has a large market share in a small amount of time. What are their
usage details? I still haven't seen anything on G+ that hasn't been on my FB
feed, or been tweeted first. Also, unlike Chrome, I don't feel G+ offers any
drastically different features.

Ok, this is speculation. But this is all speculation. I guess we just need to
wait.

~~~
dannyr
"I don't use it. None of my friends use it so it's not popular and won't be
successful."

Ah, I really dislike this mentality.

Ever heard of "Everybody Loves Raymond"? It's a TV show that I didn't and none
of my friends watched. But guess what? it was the most-watched show in the
early 2000s.

How about "Arrested Development"? I watched it. My friends were watching it.
Some of my friends still talk about it on Facebook. But guess what? It got
canceled because of poor ratings.

What I learned is that in some aspects, I'm not part of the mainstream. My
guess is a lot of people in Hacker News aren't either.

Let us not make conclusions on something based on what we or our friends use
or like.

------
arihant
I still do not see the app on the app store. Is it regional launch?

~~~
kissickas
I searched "Google Plus", saw nothing, then just "Google" and it was the top
result, if that helps.

------
joejohnson
I'm sure Facebook is beginning to worry.

~~~
mattsidesinger
I am genuinely confused about your comment. Are you being sarcastic? In the
future, you may want to add some more commentary that would make your comment
interesting and/or valuable to the members here. HN is a great site because
the people here offer thoughtful commentary.

~~~
joejohnson
I wasn't being sarcastic. I was simply saying that I bet Facebook is beginning
to worry about some serious competition.

What's really great about HN (now I'm being sarcastic), is people who will
nitpick at tiny things you say, and then reinforce their pedantics with "This
is what makes HN great" or "HN isn't about this". I was just making a simple
comment. Is that now allowed on HN?

~~~
leviathant
No one's saying that simple comments aren't allowed, but I'm not sure that
your simple comment contributes much to the conversation. Maybe if you
explained why you thought that you think that Facebook is beginning to worry
about serious competition, you wouldn't get a reply asking what you meant by
your otherwise simple comment.

When someone nitpicks at a tiny element of a larger post, that's pedantic.
When all you posted was something tiny, however, you're inviting further
inquiry by being unspecific and vague.

~~~
afterburner
The low karma he would supposedly get from simple comments should be feedback
enough.

------
gdilla
big up to Joe Hewitt - his method of notifications appearing at the bottom of
a screen with a badge on it, and being kept in one place in the app he
developed for the facebook iphone app has been borrowed by foursquare and now
Google, it seems.

------
dusing
I just wish it work in iOS5 - at all.

~~~
robjohnson
Yeah, I know that it's fully expected to have reduced functionality during a
beta, but it's getting annoying that I can't use Netflix, HBOGo, or G+.

~~~
MaysonL
I was contemplating installing the latest beta on my iPad, but this comment is
convincing me to hold off. Thanks.

------
jasongullickson
Not to be overly harsh, but I'm honestly amazed that small teams can turn out
great iOS software but a company with the talent and resources of Google gives
us an app like this?

I know that they plan to improve it, etc. but I have to wonder what it would
look like if you gave Tapbots three months and access to the G+ API...

------
kplusd
Since google officially announced google+ the linkedin shares rose by about
17.6%(as of 07/20/11). I wonder when those Wall Street guys wake up and see
google+ as a real threat to Linkedin

