Google+ updated with some cool new features

By now most of us have heard all of the news that came out of Google I/O, and one of the bigger announcements was the introduction of the new enhanced photo features included in Google+.

Well today the Google+ app for Android has received an update bring us those new features to our Android devices. At first it didn’t seem like a very big update and the official change log is no help at all:

• Set bigger cover photos, with a better aspect ratio
• Support for strikethrough formatting
• Additional bug fixes and performance improvements

What they don’t mention in the change log is that you can now see your photo highlights and share those highlights quickly and easily to your circles. You can now also see your photos that Google has enhanced as well as compare the enhanced version with the original photo.

There is now a new tab that will take you directly to the new Hangouts app as well as a new Locations tab that will show you the current location of all of your friends (that have given you permission to see this information).

Another big change is the related posts information that was announced at I/O. Google are now automatically tagging your posts and you can click on those tags to see related posts. It isn’t as flashy as the web version with cards flipping over, but it still provides you will the same information.

Now, there is one thing that I must complain about though and that is the navigation drawer. Google recently announced the new standard for the navigation drawer and they have gone to the trouble of updating quite a few things in the Google+ app but they seem to have forgotten about the navigation drawer. I would have liked to see them apply their own standard to the Google+ app and I’m sure it will be coming soon, but unfortunately it didn’t make it into this update.

[app]com.google.android.apps.plus[/app]