Does anyone at Google+ own an iPad?

At this stage there’s not a lot to say about Google+ that hasn’t already been said. Is it a micro-blog? A blog? A Social Network? A photo-sharing site? Who knows, these aren’t questions anyone can answer yet.

To sum up the general feeling from the plethora of first posts on the product we’ve been offered: impressive user growth and so-so engagement; a great tool for SEO that’s poor for anonymity; and a less spammy than Facebook that’s not as immediate as Twitter.

In the short time that I’ve been using Google+ my  principle bugbear has been the lack of tailored device recognition.

For example, if I load up the landing page on the iPad using Safari or Terra I’m automatically redirected to the mobile version of the website. I then have to log-in and scroll to the bottom of the page to change my settings to the desktop browser view. I have to do this for every new visit in browser session.

Quite why Google insists on serving the mobile view to the world’s best selling tablet I do not know, given the advantage of greater screen estate and pinch zoom it makes no sense at all. The device recognition required for a better experience would be relatively trivial for the team to implement.

Perhaps it’s all a bit different from an Android tablet? If it is I can’t help feeling that’s the Product Marketing equivalent of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Image: James Barnes