“Google says its e-book store has more than 3 million titles, many of which are free, from almost 4,000 publishers, including Simon & Schuster Inc. and Random House. Additionally, Google will let independent bookstores sell books through their own sites on the [Google eBookstore],” Crum reports. “‘Launching Google eBooks is an initial step toward giving you greater access to the vast variety of information and entertainment found in books,’ said Abraham Murray, product manager of Google Books, in a posting in the company’s official blog.”
Crum reports, “The main feature of the Google initiative is that it uses a cloud-hosting environment that allows customers to buy and store their books with Google, as opposed to downloading and storing books on traditional electronic reading devices. Google also launched an application that it says allows its e-book offerings to be read on Apple’s iPad and iPhone products.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple makes their money on hardware. This does nothing but add value to Apple’s hardware. Therefore Google is not throwing a “gauntlet” at Apple. More info and download link for Google’s free Google Books app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch via Apple’s iTunes App Store here.
Crum reports, “However, Google e-books can’t be loaded or read on Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader.”
MacDailyNews Take: You want something that works with everything? You want Apple’s revolutionary iPad, of course.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Google’s iOS app description says there is an “Offline reading mode,” so it seems that Internet connectivity is not required to be able to read the content.
Here’s Google’s video introduction:
Google Books icon is backwards iBook icons and looks cartoonish. Apparently Google customers just read the cover, not what is inside the book.
The backwards interface innovations remind me of something, can’t really put my finger on it now, oh, well, forget it…
This is soooo much better than Apple’s paltry e-book store already.
Portrait mode only on the iPad?
Ah, yes. Google will sell us the “Further progress in analysis” ebook for the bargain price of $205.00! What a discount! I’m in awe.
Or was I just saying, “awww”…
wasnt Gaggle at one time scanning (cough*stealing*cough)
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everyones book for free? well, Freetards do love Gaggle anyway – so i guess it works out!
Interesting that the video trumpets google having what all the others are missing: “Choice.”
Yeah, if only I could read books from the ibookstore, or kindle store, on both my ipad and phone!
Oh wait, I do have that choice. I think they mean I can also read them on my computer? Which I guess is a feature?
Google’s into the “me-too” thing lately. Fine, now they have this too. Until they do something new — like read for free, but ad supported — this isn’t really the brave stand for “choice” I think they are making it out to be.
Yet another means by which Google acquires your personal information to sell to advertisers by making sure that you are constantly logging onto their cloud and leaving lots of footprints.
Damn them that like free stuff thinking that it is actually free!
Google TV, Nexus 1… Execution is not much evident in Google’s recent product launches.
I am very disappointed in Apple’s weak offerings in iBook selections. I made a vow to not buy physical books anymore – that is far from possible with iBooks, and still difficult with all the selection of readers available on the iPad. I really do not like to use numerous readers, and have to go searching for books in different places.
Anonymous ‘Goo’ sez: “Google Books icon is backwards iBook icons and looks cartoonish. . . . The backwards interface innovations remind me of something, can’t really put my finger on it now, oh, well, forget it…”
This app is screaming “MICROSOFT”, which leads me to feel a bit nauseous. Do we really have to suffer through further adventures in bad taste in GUIs via Google? Please tell me no.
:-Q
Anonymous ‘maclover’ sez: “wasnt Gaggle at one time scanning (cough*stealing*cough) everyones book for free?”
Goggle’s plan was to provide a few pages of a wide range of books, either in or out of copyright. They weren’t actually providing entire copyrighted books. The controversy was that Gargoyle were providing ANY pages of copyrighted books without the owner’s permission.
Presumably that project will tie into their Globule bookstore.
Sounds like somebody’s worried : MDN!
Sorry Mac Fans, and what few Google Book fans there are, but Amazon eats everyone’s lunch here.
The Kindle is so well primed for reading books that I cannot even bring myself to turn on the iPad at night. If I have to read something before going to bed, it’s the Kindle hands-down. If I have to read in direct sunlight, again Kindle.
One of the reasons for purchasing the Kindle is that I wanted a dedicated book reader. The iPad is much too distracting, not to mention heavy. I do find that the iPad, in its defense, is the best for PDF and color diagrams, but I don’t find those in any of the novels that I read.
Again sorry Apple and Google, Amazon is the best bet in this space.
@RickW – no argument here. If you want a dedicated book reader with display limitations and few other capabilities, then the Kindle may be ideal for your needs. You can thank the Apple iPad for competing with the Kindle and bringing its price down. I suspect that a fair number of people will end up with an iPad and a Kindle.
Good News! Once you access a book through the ebookstore, there is a link just below the “Read Now” button, which says, “Read On Your Device”. Once you go to that page, there is a option to download in EPUB format. This file can then be used in iBooks on the iPad or iPhone.
The more google does, the more I think they look like Microsoft no. 2
🙁
I want to like them, but the just do every thing so badly, what a shame 🙁
too bad there aren’t more apples in the world
@swiley sez: “too bad there aren’t more apples in the world”
Same here.
From my POV here are the major aspects of Apple that make them a great and exceptional business amidst mere biznizz:
1) The brilliance and humane perspective of both Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs who set the tone for the company. Despite FUD to the contrary, and despite many failures, this is a company that focuses on benefiting the customer, not raping the customer for money.
2) The consistently entrepreneurial approach in business management. Even during the Marketing-As-Management doldrums while Steve Jobs was away, the company continued to create and push cutting edge technology. Example: The PowerPC Macs really were 2x faster than concurrent Intel CPUs during the mid-1990s.
Being Apple is DIFFICULT. It takes WORK and DEDICATION and PATIENCE.
What’s easy is being Sprint, Adobe, Sony, Microsoft, blahblahblah where the marketing people take over and treat the customer as Meat With Money. Any dumbass can run a company (into the ground) by focusing on sucking money out of the suckers.
But there is also one more factor that makes Apple great:
3) We-The-Customers are DEMANDING. We are the people amidst the sheeple who will kick Apple in the ass when they screw up. We don’t accept garbage when we could have Insane-Greatness.