I really, really, really wish the Google+ Desktop site worked on my iPad like /most every other non-Flash site on the 'net./ It's so bloated with heaven know's what (JavaScript?) that all I get is a tantalizing preview of G+ before Safari crashes. Even regular Google crashes Safari if I'm logged in on my iPad (thanks to the new Google Bar?). G+ is the last 'Desktop Only' website I use. (Outside of work, at least.) This makes it considerably less useful for me.

I'd even be happy with a native iPad app, as long as it supported some of the 'desktop only' features like Shared Circles.

Not sure why this should be downvoted; G+ really is an atrocious mess when one tries to view it in most mobile browsers. This all applies to Android too, amazingly enough. If Google wants people to use G+, then they really do need to get it on a javascript diet -- or at least start seriously testing it, starting with their own devices.

I got the Galaxy Nexus on release day. Upon trying to visit a G+ post that was linked here (the one about Goog making some guy's daughter cry), it consistently crashed the browser. Every time. Within seconds of load, clearly while doing js gymnastics. A friend with the same phone reproduced. Previously I had seen occasional G+ page crashes or hangups on a 3.0 tablet (TF101), and had a pretty dismal experience with G+ pages on 2.x, but this was outright killing the browser on every single attempt to load it. Whatever the problem was, it didn't go away until several days ago. And while it may no longer crash, G+ is still stupidly sluggish in the browser.

All of this on Google's new flagship ICS phone. Why would I put time into engaging with G+, when it seems like they're drunk on javascript bloat and have no one minding the shop on actual end-user experience? If people will have a terrible experience or need to download a dedicated app to view my posts, that's a critical fail. Nevermind these "big improvements'. Get the basics done right first, goog.

I'm curious if you were redirected to the mobile version of the website. When I visit plus.google.com on that same phone, it redirects to m.google.com/app/plus, which looks like a iphone-ified version of my stream.

Really sucks on Windows Phone, where there is no app. The desktop site doesn't crash MIE9, but it is fairly unusable overall. Their mobile site is worse, though, it has to be designed for feature phones with WAP browsers and limited screen space.

If you're on Android, then why not use the Android app?

Because I'm not interested in downloading an app for every site or social network. If viewing a G+ post without having a dismal experience is going to require a dedicated app, then I'm simply not going to use G+ at all. That represents a really lame barrier to entry for alot of prospective G+ friends, so why bother? Particularly in the case of a social network, I expect the user experience on the plain old web, mobile included, to be a first-class concern.

For all the UI's clean, minimalistic pretenses, it's ultimately a hog underneath. If there is no adult supervision on the G+ team to prevent this mess happening, because after all people should just download the app or something, then again, I'm inclined to steer well clear of it.

Apps sometimes appear to be reinventing bookmarks.

Not the case with the G+ Android application: instant photo upload, background polling, offline content caching, video Hangouts. It's certainly not a browser page facade.

i didn't downvote it, but G+ works perfectly fine on my iPad. my only complaint is that no matter how many times i try to force the desktop version, it keeps going back to the mobile version.

The 'force desktop' parameter appears to have been disabled or overridden as of late. Likely because loons like me were forcing something that didn't completely work. (And even when it did 'work,' certain important things didn't. Like text input.)

Regardless, there are simple features (shared circles for one) that only work on 'desktop' that need support on mobile.

The volume controls for circles are a great idea. I prefer this to the algorithmic approach taken by Facebook.

It's a pitty that pseudonymns are still not mentioned here though. NSFW controls would be nice too (as opposed to the blanket ban on NSFW content in place at present).

I begged for Stream-tuning from the beginning. I've never used Facebook, so I have no basis for comparison, but I really expected to be able to do this from the start.

Facebook used to have a feature very similar to this, but they removed it.

I have to change the volume for each user?

> I have to change the volume for each user?

You don't "have" to do anything, but if you wish you can change the volume for each circle.

Each circle.

The only improvement I wish for would be to let middle-clicks open things in new tabs, like it does in all those other websites that aren't drowning themselves in clever javascript.

When this is broken, please use the "Report an Issue" button to let folks know. I am told that the fancy JavaScript-ized links are supposed to work just like ordinary anchor-tag links, so any user-visible deviation from this behaviour is a bug. (Don't ask me why in the hell Google is so fond of breaking their fancy links.)

Volume sliders for circles is something I've wanted for a while. My wife and parents are posting to Google+ now, but sometimes I miss their posts. Now I can pump up the volume on my "Family" circle to 11 and I'm more likely to see their posts.

You might like my Plus Minus extension for Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pidkbnhjgdngcfcaik... - it has 10k+ users and enables hiding specific circles from the main stream.

There was such a huge influx from my friends to use Google+ when invites were first sent out, but now, barely anyone in my circles use it anymore. However, when I do check it, my feed is filled with posts from 2-3 power users from my Randoms Circle, so this "graphic-equalize" feature is very welcome!

Just curious, has anyone stopped using other soical networks and are using G+ instead, or do you use G+ on top of them?

I've pretty much switched from Facebook to Google+. I find G+ a much more comfortable place on the whole, but I get the impression that Facebook isn't really aimed at me.

What Google+ is missing when compared with Facebook is the event planning tool. The one time I find myself returning to Facebook is when someone is organizing a party or a night out.

Yah that's true, I use the event planning a lot in Facebook.

I find that G+ is good for finding content on topics, and creating a community around them. I just don't see any use for more personal social networking as long as all my friends are on Facebook.

I might have missed it, but I cannot believe they haven't implemented "nicknames"/pseudonymes yet. I thought they had promised it a while ago. How long till we see it?

I'm usually not the paranoid 'Google-has-all-your-data-be-afraid-of-your-data-on-the-Internet' type. But nicknames would be cool. There's so much more to "me" than my Google+ profile, thank you very much.

You can already specify your nickname/pseudo in your profile, im not sure if it carries any specific meaning in the app yet.

What is usage on Google+ like now? I still don't know anyone, but internet celebrities and Google employees, that use Google+. I've yet to encounter a single person who has recommended that I use Google+.

These few improvements only seem interesting to people who are current users of G+, and I feel like that's a really small group -- but maybe I'm wrong.

I'm using it extensively, so does ~100 of other people in my circle. Try searching g+ for a topic and then add interesting entries to one of your circles, try posting on their subject etc. you will quickly see that there is life there ;-)

I tried Google+ but the red "someone you don't know has added you in a circle" light was always on when I was doing unrelated things on unrelated Google properties. I recall a product manager saying they were going to fix this months ago, but last I looked it was still broken. My account remains deleted.

It is ironic: because of that, I might use the product more if it were made by any other company. I just rely on other Google products so much that having this one intrude on others means it's not worth it.

One thing I would really like is email notification of new posts, even if they don't specifically mention you. Since there is no G+ app for Windows Phone and their mobile website sucks, it'd be nice if I could set a couple people to be an "always notify", where whatever they post that I am able to see, it emails or texts me to let me know.

Right now the only way I see to do that would be to have them specifically mention me in the post.

One big missing feature for me is the wall post from Facebook or the @at message from Twitter. I didn't realize at first how much I use the 'open direct message' features on these other networks until I started messing around with G+.

I have no experience with how Facebook does it, but I find myself sharing a lot of things with just a single user on G+. Then we discuss it.

you start your word with + and you will get a autocomplete that works like @ at twitter ;-) Also hashtags are now supported.

It also works by using an '@' and typing a friend's name. So, just like twitter and just like the GP is wishing it would.

G+ will change the '@' into a '+' when you commit the post or comment.

awesome! thanks for the tip.

You can share directly with one user on G+, either privately (just make them the only person you share with) or publicly (share with them, plus the "public" circle.) Either way, they'll receive a notification message that you've shared something with them, and it will also show up in their stream. It's a lot easier than, say, Twitter DMs, where they're a totally out-of-band message.

I can't find them right now, but I remember reading a blog post or two complaining that manually dividing your contacts into Circles (and maintaining those Circles over time) was bad/useless busy work to force on users. I wonder if this Volume thing will feel like just another micro-managing necessity that makes it worse.

But I'm glad to see that they've added lots of features - like multiple admins for brand Pages, which was a big complaint during the recent brand Page rollout. Google is clearly listening to its users and trying hard to compete in the crowded social network environment.

I read the same article and it was flawed for a reason - it isn't busy work if you don't use it. You can just have 1 or 2 circles - like Family and the rest of the world.

It is extremely useful however if you want multiple channels of communication. Say, you want to post news for Ruby developers and you do that daily ... so why on earth would you want to spam your friends that aren't even developers? On the other hand posting pictures of your child should be for close acquaintances only - friends, colleagues from school / work, family, otherwise if you get popular you'll regret exposing your personal life ;)

A feature is busy work as long as you don't need it. As soon as you need it however, it becomes indispensable. Also, this particular problem cannot be solved by either ignoring it or solving it algorithmically.

> It is extremely useful however if you want multiple channels of communication. Say, you want to post news for Ruby developers and you do that daily ... so why on earth would you want to spam your friends that aren't even developers? On the other hand posting pictures of your child should be for close acquaintances only - friends, colleagues from school / work, family, otherwise if you get popular you'll regret exposing your personal life ;)

That's actually one of the weakest part of G+: I can't post something that's both public and limited to one audience. If I post Ruby stuff publicly, I'll spam my friends; if I don't publish it publicly, nobody will know I post Ruby stuff.

This is why I wish Google Circles were reversed. The current method is fine if you actually have stuff you want to post to a public database but still hide from your boss. Otherwise it's only fine if you know exactly what kind of content every single one of your followers wants to see from you.

I would much rather be able to mark all of my posts as "Technology" or "Music" or "Politics", where they are all publicly viewable from my page but my followers decide which kinds of categories they want to see from me in their feed. Let the end user control what they consider 'spammy' - not the source user who doesn't know what the end user wants to see.

Yes that's true - the feature was probably considered too advanced and "busy work", because these days anything that's not just a simple button labeled "press me" is considered too complex.

Why can't they just use up/down vote on a post and determine these numbers automagically rather than have a user enter a value for each "circle"? I mean it seems analogous to the problem of spam filtering except that you have a weight function now instead of a binary 0/1.

They forgot to mention their plans to repeal the real names policy. At least, I'm assuming/hoping that's in the works...

That Circle Volume feature is a great, nonobvious idea.

It wasn't obvious after Facebook implemented it?

Still no write API, wtf?

They have it. But only for few selected partners. http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/11/third-party-tools-to-hel...

Google Search used to be great: fast and cached pages made it great! Now it's slow, no cached pages are available, and it tries to load 'miniviews' of each page (which is ridiculous).

I tell everyone I know to avoid Google+... stick with Facebook.

Google has severe quality problems... only use them if you have to.

> no cached pages are available

Actually the cached pages are still there. Hover to see the "mini-view" you mention. Right next to the URL above the preview is the "cached" link.

That was totally two irrelevant things you mention. Who are you? A random Facebook employee?

More likely someone whose "online pharmacy" was recently delisted.