Digital magazine fans may have spent hours using AOL's Editions, Yahoo's Livestand, or perhaps the Google Currents. The last standing Flipboard-like social reader has now been replaced by Google. The search engine giant has launched Google Newsstand, which has been initially made available for Android users with a promise of rollout to iOS come 2014.
The Google Newsstand is very similar to Apple's Newsstand. Both can pool useful and interesting content from the favorite newspapers and magazines of users but Google's new service collates contents from different sources in a single newsfeed. Google also collaborated with publishers so the latter can offer in-app subscriptions.
"Today we're launching Google Play Newsstand, a new app for your Android phone or tablet which brings together all of your favorite news sources in one experience. Newsstand puts the news you care about most front and center and presents stories that interest you based on your tastes," Google Play Newsstand product manager Mussie Shore wrote on the official Android blog.
"The more you read the better it will get. You can subscribe to magazines, newspapers, blogs and news sites and we'll format and optimize them all for reading on your tablet or phone. With the swipe of a finger, you can browse full length articles, with beautiful images, audio and video right inside the app. You can access these articles even when you're offline or bookmark them to read later," Shore said.
Google also disclosed that there will be over 1,900 titles that can be availed of for free or through subscription.
There are newspapers such as "The New York Times, "The Wall Street Journal," "Los Angeles Times," and "The Australian." There is also "The Financial Times," which refused to follow the rules on the App Store and eventually pulled out its app from the online store.
There are also magazines such as "TIME," "Forbes," "The Economist," "Rolling Stone," "The New Yorker," and more. The Google Newsstand will also feature popular blogs and news sites.
Google Currents users switching to Google Newsstand can smoothly shift to the new app. After downloading the Google Newsstand, all of their favorite publications will be transferred and ready to be used in the new app.
The Google Newsstand will initially be available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
