Google+ SDK for iOS now available, Google confirms

Google’s social thing, Google+, may be lagging behind Facebook (250 million users versus Facebook’s nearly one billion globally), but the search Goliath has no intention of sitting on the sidelines.

Earlier this week, it announced that the official Google+ client would hit the iPad very soon and today the company took to the blogs to announce the official software development kit for iOS and Android.

Francis Ma, product manager with Google+, wrote in a blog post that Google+ platform for mobile is available beginning today in early developer preview…

A set of tools and social plugins will let iOS and Android developers write programs that are deeply integrated with Google+.

Earlier this month, the popular social network aggregator Flipboard became the first mobile app to offer Google+ integration by way of official APIs.

The Google+ SDK supports features to facilitate the creation of iOS and Android apps that can integrate Google+ identity, sharing and history. Full documentation for developers is available here.

The news came hot off the heels of Facebook’s announcement that it would “soon” provide an iOS SDK to make it easier to add Facebook to iOS apps, along with support for the Facebook integration in iOS 6.

Google said at Google I/O yesterday that its social network now commands a 250 million strong army of users around the world, 150 million of them active at least once a month and fifty percent signing in daily and spending approximately twelve minutes on average in the Google+ stream.

The search firm also showed off a native Google+ app for iPad that will launch “very, very soon”. It’ll support Hangouts and sport a “playful” and really responsive user interface.

Just hours before Google kicked off its Google I/O show at San Francisco’s Moscone West, Facebook suddenly announced in a blog post that it would completely rebuild its sluggish iOS app, re-writing it for “blazing fast” performance.

Who says competition isn’t a good thing?


Thoughts on the rumored 7-inch iPad

It was inevitable that after Google’s Nexus 7 announcement, the “iPad Mini” rumors would start surfacing again. The 7-inch Asus-branded tablet has garnered quite a bit of attention this week.

Apple has long been believed to be working on its own 7-inch slate, with reports coming from both Apple-insiders and news outlets alike that such a product exists. But will we ever see it?

The latest report comes from Pacific Crest‘s Andy Hargreaves. The analyst told investors that his firm believes that Apple is planning to unveil a 7.85-inch iPad this fall.
 

“We anticipate an entry-level 7.85″ iPad with 8GB of NAND capacity to price at $299 with an initial gross margin of 31%. We estimate Apple will sell 10.0 million 7.85″ iPads in FQ1 (Dec. 2012) and 35.2 million in all F2013. Based on estimated component order volume, we believe our iPad mini unit estimates are well within Apple’s production capacity.”

Rumor or not, releasing an “iPad Mini” right before the holidays would probably do wonders for Apple’s bottom line. Not to mention what it would do for its already-dominant tablet marketshare.

We have a bit of a problem with the $299 price point though. Google is selling its Nexus 7 at just $199, so it seems like Apple would be pricing itself out of the market at $300. Although to be fair, word is that Google is currently losing money on every tablet sold. And that’s just simply not Apple’s style.

But even if we took the competition out of it, would $299 be worth it for a 7-inch tablet? That’s just $200 cheaper than Apple’s 10-inch Retina-display slate. And just $100 cheaper than the iPad 2.

More importantly, where would the iPod touch fit into all of this? The device hasn’t seen an upgrade in almost two years. And last we heard, it was going to be getting the same 4-inch screen upgrade that the iPhone is rumored to receive this fall.

In all reality, Apple wouldn’t need a larger iPod touch and a smaller iPad. You would think that it would either a) make an iPod touch with a larger display (4, maybe 5-inches), or b) scrap the Touch line altogether and make a smaller tablet.

The odds are actually pretty good that Apple has at least one of these products in the oven, and will unveil it alongside the new iPhone in the fall. The question is, which one is it? And which one would you be more likely to buy?