Google + and Android

One feature of Google + is its Android app. If you haven't put it on your 'droid yet, do it now. With Google's current focus on 'mobile first,' I think we'll be seeing valuable updates to the G+ app in upcoming weeks and months.

In addition to Android's G+ ease of use, one feature I'm happily using is the Instant Upload. Here's a short Google video about Android G+ Instant Upload. Although the Instant Upload video is more marketing than information, if you haven't used Google Plus extensively, you may want to check out other features of G+. Google has 11 videos here, as of 02 Jul 2011, 7:35 PM CDT.

The main page of Android G+ has five icons; Stream, Photos, Circles, Huddle and Profile. Guess we'll probably have to wait until screen-side cameras are more common on smartphones until Hangout is added to the Android app. Or maybe it is baked into the app but only shows up on phones that have both front and back cameras.

The G+ integration into Android worked nicely for my first 'droid photo posted to Plus. However...tried to add the aforementioned photo quickly to this Blogger post via G+, but couldn't figure out how to easily do that. That's not a knock on G+; probably just a reflection of my lack of experience with both Android and G+, along with a mediocre knowledge of the innards of Blogger. I'll just do a workaround for now, and do research later to see if there's an easy way to 'Plus' my photo to a Blogger post. (Yay! My first use of plus as a verb...)

I've only played with Android G+ a little bit thus far, but I predict it will become one of my more used apps, especially during idle times, such as sitting in airports, bus stations and when hitchhiking along deserted highways.

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