While it may not be the most popular application among the Android faithful, Google Books is still a pretty solid e-reading app. A small update has sneaked out into the Market today, although at present it doesn't seem to be showing up in your my apps -- kind of like how YouTube went un-noticed.
The version numbers vary across devices, but has been bumped on the Gingerbread and below version, and the Honeycomb and above versions. What's confusing is to exactly what this update is for.
The changelog on the Honeycomb upwards version -- and indeed the web market -- touts accessibility support/TTS, ability to remove a downloaded book from your device (pretty sure we already could?) and improved stability.
Over in the Gingerbread and below camp, the changelog reads very differently. Here we get fixes for download error messages. In both cases the version numbers are bumped only very slightly, so we'll go out on a limb and say its a bug fix update. Either way, you'll find download links after the break.
Reader comments
Google Books app update sneaks into the Market
Only sad thing about this app is the inability to add already downloaded epub.
Honestly, in my opinion, Google Books is the best eBook app on tablets. I love the page animations, something that Kindle still has not done for Android tablets yet. I'm old fashioned, so the more that the eReading experience can feel like a traditional book, the more I am likely to actually use it. Kindle feels more like a powerpoint presentation with just words, with really deters me.
At this time, the only time I buy a book on anything but Google Books is when the book isn't available on it.
Meh! Lots of readers do what this one does. My Acer Tablet came with two very good readers, Lumiread, and Nook, both of which do everything this does.
Wow. At last a reason to go buy a decent TTS voice app.
The read aloud function finally WORKS well enough to use. Not the most dramatic of voices, but good enough for many things I might want to listen to while driving.
Cause I mean those are important updates also. It's not like I would give up page animations in a second if it meant that I could take a note or highlight a word. I bought "Steve Jobs" for the irony and it killed me that I couldn't mark things like with the kindle app.