Google Play Books

While Google Play Books is an indispensable app for many people, it certainly has a long way to go before it could be called perfect. The app is basically iTunes for books, so it has a vast library of content that is similar to the music library found in iTunes, and you'll have to pay to unlock most of that content. There are some free books, but just about anything worth reading is going to cost something. Of course, with the vast array of best-selling books in every genre, scholastic textbooks, and artistic comics, it's only expected that you would have to pay for content within the app. From the tremendous library of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, young adult, romance, comics, and more, you'll be able to see free previews of the content found in each item. This gives you the ability to better determine if you want to spend any money to unlock the entire item. Once you've paid for the content, it will be downloaded to your device. That means you'll be able to view it in its entirety without having to be connected to the internet. The smart recommendation feature is another bright spot in the software. There are numerous curated series that fans of specific genres or authors will adore, and many authors have comprehensive author pages with the latest news about their upcoming or recent releases. The app can even let you know when something is released that you might enjoy. If you like to read daily content from sites like Vox, Slate, or the editors of Google Play itself, you can access a feed of book-related news from those sources. This feature is only available to users in the United States. Thanks to the dedicated comic reader, you can find the latest news about comics that you love, and you can see what special deals are going on in the Play Books Store. Thanks to the Bubble Zoom feature of the comic reader, you can easily find out what's happening in the latest edition of your favorite series. As with many advanced digital reading tools like Google Play Books, you can customize the overall experience for yourself by changing the page background color, text size, font, and more. For those who like to read at night while others are sleeping nearby, the Night Light feature will help your eyes handle the light difference. Just like buying textbooks from the school store, you can choose to rent them for a significantly lower cost. This will grant you access to the textbook for a certain amount of time. With the range of dedicated textbook reading functions found in Play Books, like the Skim Mode, integrated Google Search through the text, and Quick Bookmarks, you'll be able to take full advantage of the knowledge found in the text.