Apple today approved the Google+ app for the iPhone, and posted it to the App Store.

As of noon ET, only an iPhone version of Google+ was available. It's unclear whether Google has created an iPad-specific app.

Google+, the social network that launched earlier this month but still remains in field trials, already boasts 10 million users, Google CEO Larry Page said last week during the company's quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts.

The app may not be available to everyone immediately, said Vic Gundotra, who heads Google's social division.

"iPhone, meet Google+," said Gundotra as he announced the new software on his Google+ account. "This app should be rolling out over the next few hours."

Computerworld was able to download and install the Google+ app for the iPhone from this App Store page. As of 2 p.m. ET, however, the app was still not available via an App Store search.

Two weeks ago, a Google employee said that the company had submitted Google+ to the App Store. "The Google+ iPhone app has been submitted to the App Store (no not today, sometime prior to today) and is awaiting approval," said Erica Joy on July 4.

According to that timeline, Google's app took twice as long as the vast bulk of submitted apps to win Apple's approval.

Apple rarely talks about the approval process for its iOS download store, but at the Worldwide Developer Conference in June 2010, CEO Steve Jobs said, "Ninety-five percent of all the apps we get submitted are approved within seven days."

The App Store description of Google+ said that the app runs on the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, and requires iOS 3.1 or later.
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However, iPhone apps can run on the iPad in an emulation mode that simply doubles the size of the former's display on the tablet's screen.

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