The fate of a Google+ app for iPhone users is now in the hands of Steve Jobs.
"For my iPhone using friends: the Google+ iPhone app has been submitted to the App store (no not today, sometime prior to today) and is awaiting approval," Google employee Erica Joy posted on her Google+ account.
Joy later said the submission also included an iPad app.
In a blog post introducing Google+, Google said last week that an Android app was already available in the Android Marketplace but that an iOS app was "coming soon to the App Store."
In the past Apple hasn't hesitated to reject products it thinks threatens key iOS features, which is part of the App Store's Terms of Use. Apps for Opera and Google Voice, for instance, were initially rejected. Opera Mini for iPhone eventually made its way into the App Store in April 2010, while Google Voice showed up in November 2010 after an FCC inquiry.
Although Apple doesn't have its own social-networking site (unless you count Ping), it does offer products with features similar to those found in Google+. Group-messaging service Huddle, for instance, is similar to Apple's upcoming iMessage, while Google+'s Hangout, a group video chat, resembles Apple's FaceTime.
Since Google launched its fourth-known attempt at a social-networking platform (after Orkut, Buzz, and Wave), Google has been tweaking the site based on user feedback. Apart from an iOS app, users have been asking for Facebook data imports, an app store, an API for developers to create programes based on Google+, and of course, wider access to the closed-off social Internet party.
Last week, mobile app sharing service Appsfire said that although the Android Market was pumping out apps at a faster pace than Apple's App Store, the attrition rate of Android apps was about twice that of iOS apps.
For more, see PCMag's full hands-on with Google+, the slideshow below, as well as 6 Things Google+ Can Do That Facebook Can't and Social Networking Showdown: 8 Facebook Features Google+ Doesn't Have (Yet). On privacy, see Google+ Privacy: Has Google Learned Its Lesson?