The Bad
It’s not fair to go too extensively into what’s wrong with the app, since we’re talking about something that’s completely unofficial, but here are a few of the more glaring issues at least worth pointing out.
Commenting, for instance, opens up in the right-handed column so you can interact with whole threads at a time. The problem, however, is that it doesn’t take into account the amount of real estate actually given: You have to annoyingly swipe the column left and right to leave comments that are too long (see picture below).
Photo untagging also doesn’t seem to work (although actually tagging a photo does), which is sure to cause some antsiness if you’re away from your desktop and happen to come across a photo of yourself doing kegstands in lingerie (not me, but just saying).
Like the iOS version of Google+, your basic profile info can’t be edited through the app. Nothing too major, but it might peeve some of the more obsessive profile tinkerers out there.
Most of these gripes are minor, and most of them can be rectified via the web version through Safari. But the whole point of an app is to NOT HAVE TO USE the web version. We’ll see if these nuggets gets fixed by the time the official version rolls out.
(MORE: Hands On With the Google+ iPhone App: Sleek and Buggy (As it Should Be))
Overall
…it’s nice. And a monumental, golf clap-worthy improvement over the iPhone version. But as of now the app seems primed for pretty much one thing: browsing. Aside from creating an album or leaving a comment, you can’t even do simple things like create an Event Invite. The app is 100 times more in the “browsing” column than “creation tool.” Just like the iPad, then.
Still, it does browsing very well, and seems poised to take the mantle from the web version on the tablet. It’ll be interesting to see if Facebook speeds up shipping the official app, or if they’ll spend more time tweaking it.
UPDATE: It appears that Facebook isn’t letting users access their account through the iPad version anymore. Or at least I can’t. Anyone seeing something similar?
UPDATE 2: Yep. Looks like they blocked it.
Chris Gayomali is a writer-reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @chrigz, on Facebook, or on Google+. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.