Google eBooks offers excellent service across wide range of Apple, Nexus and Android Tablets, according to consumers and book publishers

The Book Publishers Opinion

On Monday morning, Google officially unveiled its entry into the hotly competitve e-book market with an e-reader app called Google eBooks and a store called the Google eBookstore. The book publishers products are not new, but are rather a unification of many of Google's digital book efforts.

Like Amazon has done with its own Kindle platform, Google eBooks is a cross-platform solution for reading digital books across multiple devices. Currently, users can read Google eBooks in JavaScript-enabled browsers, in iOS and Android-powered devices, and on any e-reader supporting Adobe's eBook platform (which includes Barnes and Noble's Nook, Sony's Reader, and at least one of Borders' many e-readers.) There is not yet support for the Amazon Kindle, Kobo, BlackBerry, or Windows Mobile 7.

A Self-Publishing First For Book Publishing Companies

To this end, the phone is powered by a 1 GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird processor—some fans had been hoping for a dual-core processor—and features 16 GB of onboard memory. Although the Nexus S has microUSB connectivity, it seems to be missing removable storage: there’s nary a SD or microSD slot to be found in the phone’s specs. The Nexus S is a quad-band GSM device with tri-band HSPA, offering mobile broadband at speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps (and 5.76 Mbps on HSUPA), and sports the usual panoply of additional sensors, including a gyroscope, accelerometer, digital compass, and a proximity sensor.

To buy Google eBooks, the user needs a Google Checkout account. However, Google's catalog of ebooks is also available through a number of partner resellers who accept other forms of payment. Alibris and Powell's Books, for example, accept PayPal and standard credit cards, so a Google Checkout account is not mandatory.

A Book Publisher and Christian Book Publisher Recommends the Android

Google eBooks and the eBookstore were anything but surprise appearances on Monday. As far back as four years ago, Google's intention of selling e-books online was well-known, and it was originally going to be an extension of the Book Search project, which was itself an extension of the Google Print project.

“Samsung was thrilled to work with Google to create the first device featuring the much anticipated Android 2.3 OS,” said Samsung Telecommunications America chief strategy officer Omar Khan, in a statement. “Nexus S integrates Samsung’s best-in-class hardware and technology with the exciting new features and upgrades of Android 2.3 Gingerbread to give consumers a breakthrough smartphone experience.”

Under the hood, the Nexus S is a well-specced Android phone—although the final specs don’t quite match up to all the rumors that have been floating about the device for the last few weeks. The Nexus S features that 4-inch, 235ppi touch-enabled “contour display” with a curved glass surface and enough resolution to handle high-definition video with aplomb

Publishers Embracing Right To Publish A Book

The Nexus S also sports two cameras (a front-facing VGA camera for video chat and a 5 megapixel back-facing camera), integrated 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless networking, near-field communication (for those point-of-sale systems and “bump” interactions), assisted GPS, and a battery Google says should offer up to 6.7 hour of talk time on 3G networks.

Users browse and download books in the Google eBookstore, which is currently 100% web-based. If you're using Google Books for Android, for example, hitting the "Get eBooks" button at the top of the screen launches the bookstore in a browser.

Now that Google's commercial e-book endeavor and book publishing company is available to the public, the notion that the e-reader market is hardware driven should be more easily put to rest.