Google Launches 'Newsstand' Android Reading App

Image via CrunchBase

Mix Google Play magazine store with the two-year-old Currents magazine app, stir gently, and you get Google's Newsstand Android reading app that supports publications' paywalls, the Gigaom.com Web site reported.

The Google app launch will offer more than 1,900 free and subscription-based content sources, including paywall publications The New York Times, Financial Times and Wall St. Journal, according to the Gigaom.com post. Present Currents and Google magazine users will have to upgrade their apps to benefit from Newsstand.

The move is intended seriously to challenge Apple's mobile magazine and newspaper store, Gigaom.com reported.

A Bad Apple in the Amazon?

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThey were still sweeping up the celebratory confetti from the launching of Seattle-based Amazon, Inc.'s  Appstore, offering applications for Google's Android smartphones, when Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple, Inc. swept in and said: "Say Hello to Litigation."

According to stories in The Los Angeles Times and Fast Company, Apple sued for unfair competition and trademark infringement over the use of the phrase Appstore, contending that its use by Amazon will confuse and mislead consumers. Amazon's digital storefront was offering for download 3,800 Android apps from the outset. Citing Microsoft's Marketplace as an example, Apple contends other mobile app retailers have managed to avoid the Appstore moniker, and expects Amazon to follow suit, as it were.