Category: Opinion

Over the course of the last week, the news coming out of Mobile World Congress (MWC) has been the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge along with the new LG G5.  These three devices look stunningly impressive from a design and function perspective and early indications are they will be quite a hit here in 2016.  But as the dust settled and people started taking a hard look at these devices, it became clear that one of the benefits of Android Marshmallow, which all three devices are running, is missing:  Adoptable Storage.

If you are one of the people that look at Google Plus, seeing all the changes and left scratching your head, you are not alone.  By a long shot. The little social network that could, which was aimed squarely at meeting Facebook head-on, has seemingly been not only revived from the brink of death earlier this year but actually thriving.  And even more importantly, Google seems to be paying attention to it.

I know, I was just as shocked.

For those who don’t use Google Plus or have not looked at it in a long time, let me give you a bit of background.  While never coming out fully and saying they were killing Google Plus, the Mountain View company left plenty of hints and suggestions that their attempt at being a social network was ending.  Bits and pieces of the service like Google Photos and profile integration were moved out of the service and even some of the single sign-on features were starting to disappear.  It seemed that Google had other interests in mind and had conceded the social network space to Facebook, Instagram and others.

But then a curious thing happened just last month.  Google with a reasonable amount of fan fair announced a completely revamped Google Plus experience was coming and, in fact, users could try it immediately.  The move was to focus the service on Communities, collections of fellow users with common interests around a subject (like Formula 1 for me as an example), and would be  tweaking and improving it over time.

Now why would you spend any amount of time, resources or money on something that is supposedly dead?  What you have to keep in mind though is that Google never said they were killing plus.  It was assumed by many blogs and tech writers based on other things the said.  That is where it went off the rails.

Over the course of the weekend I saw several different news sites posts articles that went along the lines of “Google has been listening to your voice and recording it”.  Here is an example, and another and a third for good measure so you get the idea of what I’m talking about.  I watched in befuddled amazement as I saw link after link to these articles on Twitter, Google+ and even my personal Facebook timeline.

This isn’t news folks and the fact that your voice is recorded for, erm, a voice search should not be a shock to anyone.  In fact Google has made it clear they would be doing for some time and have always given users the ability to listen to their recordings and delete them.  Why this has all of the sudden become a big issue is a surprise to me quite frankly as recordings are both necessary for the service to work and for Google to improve their search algorithms.

There was an undertone at the Google event yesterday that didn’t necessarily go unnoticed but certainly wasn’t put to the fore.  Google is serious about Project Fi.  For those who don’t know, Project Fi is the mobile service that Google launched in April of this year and it uses a unique combination of existing carriers (T-Mobile and Sprint) as well as always on Wi-Fi to make calls and consume data on your device.  It is a pay-as-much-as-you-use plan meaning that if you have a 3GB data plan and only use 1GB, you only pay for that 1GB, not the entire 3GB like traditional carriers.  With the base package of $20 giving you unlimited calls and text then just $10 per gigabyte of data, the plan is cost effective when you compare it to other carriers.

To this point Project Fi has been invitation only and only available on the Nexus 6.  Google, wisely, has wanted to control the number of people on the service so they can better manage expectations and experiences.  After yesterday however, it is clear that Google is committed to Project Fi with the addition of the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P but also the payment plan you can sign up for on these devices when you sign up for Project Fi.  While it certainly isn’t the flood gates opening, it is more than the trickle of invites that have been committed to so far.

If the title of this post wasn’t clear, let me solidify it for you.  I love Google+.  I appreciate that it is a somewhat dying (at least in the eyes of Google), stepchildish social network that is the butt of many jokes (“the only people who use Google+ are people who work for Google”) but it continues to be a key part of my day.  There are a lot of reasons why, which I will share, none of which may be applicable to you.  I’m not here to try to convince you to use the service.  I look at all of the technology and services we use and I say the same thing to anyone who asks the question of which is better:  You have to find the one that works for you.  It could be an iPhone or a Nexus 6.  It could be Facebook versus Instagram.  It could be Google+ versus Facebook.  There is no right answer here and I’m not going to try to tell you otherwise.

What I am going to do is tell you why Google+ continues to grow as a part of my everyday life.  It comes down to content and community.

Since the release of Lollipop about 6 months ago, Google has been on a slow and methodical march with the apps that are included in the release.  While we have always had stand alone apps like Google Maps and YouTube, increasingly even the most basic of apps found in Lollipop are being released into the Google Play Store for everyone to download, regardless if they are running Android 5.x or not.  Apps like Google Messages (for SMS), Google Calendar, Inbox, Chrome and the latest, Google Clock are no longer confined to just the latest release of Android.  Anyone can download them and get a Lollipop-like experience with these apps but also get the latest-and-greatest offerings from Google.

This migration to standalone apps is not being highly touted by Google but in my opinion it is a sign of things to come and a step in the right direction when it comes to base Android versus apps.  By making this move it also helps solidify the future of Android by potentially speeding up releases of Android core updates.  It is a win for everyone.