Google Books Versus Kindle Apps on Android and the iPad (Video)

Google Books was just announced as the newest place to buy eBooks that you can read on practically any device. At launch, you have access to around 3 million books, which can be read on Android, the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch as well as in your web browser and a whole host of eBook readers including the Nook and Nook Color.

The Google Books store has similar pricing and availability to Amazon’s Kindle eBookstore, but how does the reading experience stack up? We put the Android version of Google Books up against the Kindle for Android app and also compared Google Books on the iPad to the iPad Kindle app to see which is the best bet for your reading experience.

Both of these apps offer syncing between multiple devices so you can read on almost any device you have with you, but there are some small but noticeable differences in terms of functionality and the user experience that may make you want to hold ff on using Google Books as your main reading app.

Asa we note in the video, the Google Books apps have some upsides, but until they support landcape mode and more importantly notes, bookmarks and highlighting we will stick with the Kindle App. One of my favorite things about reading on the Kindle app has been the ability to see popular highlighted phrases, something I hope Google Books gets in an update soon.

One thing that Google Books has going for it is that when you purchase an eBook, you can download an ePub or PDF file for use on many different eBook readers. Normally these files are locked down with digital rights management software which controls what you can and cannot do with the book. For the most part, books purchased on Google Books will have DRM, but if the author and publisher, someone like Cory Doctorow, does not want DRM it appears that books can be sold without it.

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