Google announced today that it is merging Currents, its Flipboard-like aggregator for interesting stories, with all of the periodical subscriptions available through Google Play into a new app called Google Play Newsstand. In addition, the company is now selling subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times through the Google Play Store for the first time as a part of the roll-out.
The new app seems to be an attempt to boost the capabilities of Android tablets, and make them as appealing to publisher’s as Apple’s iPad.
Of course, it’s almost impossible not to draw comparisons between Google’s Newsstand offering and Apple’s Newsstand app for iOS, which serves a similar purpose. The biggest difference between the two is that Apple doesn’t have a way of pooling news stories from all of the different apps that are in its Newsstand app.
Also worth noting is that there can be some fine print attached to some of the subscriptions in Newsstand. If you buy the New York Times through Google’s service, you’ll only be able to read it through the Newsstand app, and not through the Times’s iOS or Android apps. A subscription to the Times from elsewhere does allow you to get free access to its offerings in Newsstand, though.
The Newsstand app is available in the Google Play Store today.
