Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Apple Finally Approves Google+ App For iPhone

Posted by Unknown on from the mark-zuckerberg-makes-angry-face dept.

CWmike writes "Apple approved the Google+ app for the iPhone on Tuesday, and posted it to the App Store. It's unclear whether Google has created an iPad-specific app. Two weeks ago, a Google employee said that the company had submitted Google+ to the App Store ... on July 4. According to that timeline, Google's app took twice as long as the majority of submitted apps to win Apple's approval."

17 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. !news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously, how is this even remotely news? Why would Apple not approve Google+ app when there are Facebook app and tons of other social networks apps? Why would it be important to note that it took twice as long as statistically approval process takes, especially when there were major holidays during that timeframe? Please explain me. It's not like Apple has any kind of relationship with Facebook. Microsoft does, and I would still be fairly certain that even Microsoft would accept it to Windows Phone 7 app store.

    Oh, it's ComputerWorld and I guess they needed some visitors from slashdot again.

    1. Re:!news by Hope+Thelps · · Score: 2

      Why does the app approval take so long? Did Google fail to comply with the requirements? Did Apple think it might contain malware or something? What is the problem here?

      An extra week? Maybe caused by holidays, sickness, a couple of tougher calls that were ahead of it in the queue... this is a complete non-story.

      --
      To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
    2. Re:!news by Altus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How do you know they were dragging their feet on this? I bet that the google + app is more than twice as complicated as the average app on the iPhone, especially when you consider all the total bullshit fart apps that probably take minutes to approve or deny. Whats more it makes extensive use of a lot of features, it communicates externally, it uses the camera for stills and video and probably also the GPS system. These are sensitive areas and even a cursory check to make sure the app is doing what it claims to do is going to take time. There is a lot of ground to cover there that is unnecessary in some other apps. I'm sure apple has some automated tools that tell the people doing the approval what APIs are being used and ones that are not using many important APIs probably get approved a lot faster.

      Basically, you have no idea if this is reasonable or not, you have simply decided that it was unreasonable so you can complain about it.

      --

      "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

    3. Re:!news by TheClarkster · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, Apple accidentally published an older buggy version Google had submitted for testing. It was swapped out after about 2 hours with the release version.

    4. Re:!news by ynp7 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Probably just took them that long to get an invite to G+ so they could test it.

    5. Re:!news by Altus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You really believe that not being able to change the background initially was because of control and not simply because they had limited developer time and decided that time would be better spent on a different feature or on fixing bugs?

      --

      "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

    6. Re:!news by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

      So perhaps part of this delay was Apple telling Google to get their shit together and publish a decent app before they would approve it.

      Funny that they don't tell the thousands of half-assed game developers who sell buggy iPhone games to "get their shit together". Dinofarm Games is just the one of the worst offenders. When you buy a $5 iPhone game, you've got about a 1 in 8 chance that it doesn't have bugs that make it completely unplayable.

      I notice the worst one I ever saw, a game called "Rebellion" that wouldn't even get to the start screen without crashing, has finally been taken off the app store after six months or so. I don't know if the developer took it down or Apple pulled the plug.

      So I seriously doubt that making sure the app developer gets his "shit together" was any part of the equation in the matter of Apple's approval of a free Google+ app.

      But perhaps Apple will notice your valiant willingness to fight for their honor (which is more than they've ever done). You never know, there might be a little something in it for you down the road. Probably not, though.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    7. Re:!news by CapuchinSeven · · Score: 2

      ...er, yes it was.

    8. Re:!news by fusiongyro · · Score: 2

      If apple.com were an invite-only social network released publicly just a few weeks ago and rate-limiting subscriptions I guess there would be no comparison, right?

  2. iPhone ONLY. by jaskelling · · Score: 3, Informative

    Does not support or work on iPod Touch or iPad. Makes this app completely worthless to me. The rest of Google's apps support them...why the *$#( doesn't this?

    1. Re:iPhone ONLY. by arkhan_jg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There is a separate ipad app, it's still awaiting approval by apple
      .

      --
      Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
    2. Re:iPhone ONLY. by wisnoskij · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And yet my computer does not have all of those and they still allow me on G+.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  3. Approval time is around 2 weeks for all right now by cstromme · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We've had several apps awaiting approval the last weeks, and it all seems to average out to around 10-20 days. So it's not some special delay for Google. My guess is that they're swamped with updates for Mac OS apps before Lion hits tomorrow.

  4. So? by Lysander7 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I loathe Apple. There's been evidence time and again of their questionable (to put it mildly) business tactics. However, I fail to see why this matters in any way whatsoever. In the end, Apple still approved it. Sure, they took a while. Perhaps there was a reason? They could just pull a Facebook and try to impede G+ by not allowing it at all (though in the end it wouldn't do much). ...or we can all be outraged in typical /. fashion at how evil this corporation is, regardless how pedantic the reason might be.

    Yeah, let's go with that.

  5. Is it any suprise this is from"Android Power" blog by joeflies · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the author clearly states his bias - the name of the blog is called "Android Power". His bio states he's out to irk apple fans.

    there is no information in the article whether the delay is Apple's fault or Google's fault. Yes, you can have delays in the approval process of your own doing, not because of a conspiracy that Apple caused.

    And all in all, google+ is not even a service that's available to the majority of people. It's in limited beta, meaning that the affected user base who didn't have access to the "delayed" client is small.

  6. Re:Mild censorship by Cabriel · · Score: 2

    This requires aging and use before an app can be determined to be good and/or malware-free. Many early adopters will get the short end of the stick which they will blame on Apple instead of their own idiocy.

    Apple took the approach that made the most business sense because it also keeps up the reputation of their products, and *that* is their goal here. The same cannot be done with Slashdot's rating system.

  7. Re:Mild censorship by Missing.Matter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I understand Apple's philosophy of only allowing the best apps in their istore.

    Have you been on the appstore lately? Since its inception it's been filled to the brim with crap. Finding decent apps consists of downloading featured apps or looking at the top 100 list. Anything beyond that is probably junk. Make no mistake the app approval process is all about control of the content on the app store, not the quality.