Google Currents for Android Review

Google Currents for Android is a content-aggregation app for Android users. It will integrate feeds from Google News, video and photo streams, Google+ streams and RSS feeds into a magazine-style layout.

It was unveiled by Google in December 2011. Inevitably, it has been called Google’s answer to Flipboard, the aggregation app that displayed custom content in a magazine format for iOS users.  Flipboard had been a major cause of app envy to Android users with its stylish layout and personalized magazine format.

Google has tied up with more than 150 publishers like Forbes, PBS, 500px, The Guardian, TechCrunch, Saveur and more to display their full-length articles within the app. You can select publications to add to your Library. When your first open the app, it asks you to login to your Google account and automatically pulls in your Google Reader feeds, which you can also add to your library, if required. You can search and add any public Google+ stream or RSS feed – this means all your favorite blogs can be integrated into the app.

The Library will pre-download the latest content from your selected feeds for a smooth reading experience, without any delays.  The layout is clean and simple. You can navigate through the articles by swiping and access a menu to see the latest headlines and excerpts from the same publication. Another tab on the Google Currents app is named Trending. This uses Google search technology to track the five most trending stories in various categories like World, Sports, Technology, Entertainment etc.  You can share the article you are reading via Google+, email, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Instapaper.

Though the media dubbed Google Currents Flipboard-killer even before its release, it does not incorporate one of the most popular features on Flipboard and similar apps – the ability to integrate feeds from social networks. Google Currents was probably never meant to be a social-network aggregation app. The magazine style format is also not as appealing as that of Flipboard, forgoing fancy animations for a minimalistic and easy to use format.

Instead Google has been focusing on the publishing community to provide high-quality content through Google Currents. Google has introduced the Google Currents Producer, a platform through which any blogger or news publisher can customize their feeds for Currents. Customization options include adding branding features, social network feeds, videos and custom CSS. The platform also integrates with Google Analytics to allow publishers to collect analytics data.