London — After months of waiting, Google Books has finally made its way and landed at UK shores for folks living in Blighty with its app now available for download via the Android Market after enjoying a successful exclusivity in U.S.
The latest move indicates that the British users will now be able to get access to purchase published books to read on their phones and tablets. However, the move puts Google directly in competition with numerous long-standing ebook readers including Amazon’s Kindle app and the Aldiko Book Reader.
“Readers in the UK now have access to the world’s largest ebooks collection, with hundreds of thousands of ebooks for sale–from major UK publishers like Hachette, Random House and Penguin–as well as more than two million public domain ebooks for free,” commented Google in a statement.
Google Books promises a wide range of titles from “favorite bestsellers to up-and-coming authors and rare out-of-print books”. Two million of the 3 million books are free, while the others are available for purchase after Google deals with publishers Hachette Filipacchi and Blackwells, among others.
The app is multi-platform–that functions on Android, iPhone, PC and eReader–you just have to log in with your Google credentials to get access. Google is also making a big demonstration of its synchronization; the app lets you pick up reading on your phone where you left off on your laptop. It is a “library in the cloud”, though some readers may take issue with where one can and cannot download the books.
Interested users will need a mobile handset with Android 2.1 or later to take advantage of the app that has been launched alongside the browser-based store.
It is a challenge to the Kindle model, although observers on the Android Marketplace page commented that the app for Android phones is not ideal for easy reading: “visually it could be more impressive”, “a rather pathetic reader with absolutely no customization possible. Can not even read text on phone screen”, and other comments on how it comes pre-installed on the refreshes of Android instead of being optional. Not everyone was upset-there are 6,355 five-star reviews and one user described the app as “phenomenal”.
Google was embroiled in some controversy earlier regarding infringement of copyright in the literary field; it has faced multiple legal actions from publishers, writers and lobby groups on copyright issues. Google entered into a settlement with the Authors Guild in 2008, bringing to an end the lawsuit alleging copyright infringement.
Google Books is free on the Android Market. You can watch a video of Google Books in action below…
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