Google launches Google Currents

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Dec. 8 launched Google Currents, its long-awaited magazine-reading application for smartphones and tablets, joining an increasingly competitive field led by Flipboard and Zite. Google Currents will let users access and read articles from more than 180 publications on Android smartphones and tablets, as well as Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPads and iPhones. U.S. users can download the app from the Android Market and the Apple App Store and begin subscribing to the available publications.

Currents users can share content with their contacts on the Google+ social network. Content users access is then available offline, cached by Google, so that users can read articles even without a Web connection.--Google is also launching a self-service platform to let publishers design, brand and customize their Web content for Google Currents. "For example, if you're a small regional news outlet, a non-profit organization without access to a mobile development team, or a national TV network with Web content, you can effortlessly create hands-on digital publications for Google Currents," explained Mussie Shore, the Currents product manager, and Sami Shalabi, the technical lead for Currents, in a blog post.

Based on the Linux kernel, Android is a wildly successful platform. Note: It wouldn’t surprise me if by this time next year Google is activating 1 million new Android devices a day. Despite Google not charging handset makers a dime for Android, the mobile platform is a huge money spinner for the company. Then there are the 10 billion app downloads. Google Thursday launched its new Currents App, a newsreader that’s meant to compete with other virtual magazine style newsreaders, most notably Flipboard, a gorgeous iOS app that’s received widespread acclaim for its interface. (Flipboard made the PCWorld Top 100 products list in 2010). Currents packages news sources as magazines that you can subscribe to in Currents to get custom formatted stories from your favorite news sources.

Google Currents home pageThe first problem is that, at the moment, Currents has some rather large bugs.--After I connected the app to my Google account and scrolled past the app’s short tutorial, I tried to add a few of my favorite news sources to the app. Currents isn’t as powerful as most newsreaders, and isn’t as pretty as other magazine style newsreaders. The only thing that Currents really has an advantage over, say, Flipboard is that Google’s app is available for Android devices whereas Flipboard is iOS only. Android users might want to look into magazine-style newsreader app Pulse instead, though, at least until Google gets the kinks worked out with Currents.