Google Currents goes international

Wednesday, April 11, 2012 | 8:54 AM

In December we launched Google Currents, an app for Android and iOS devices that lets you explore online magazines and other content with the swipe of a finger. We’re thrilled by how many readers and publishers are using the app in the U.S. -- nearly 400 publisher editions and over 14,000 self-produced editions are now available.

After the U.S. launch, the top features readers requested were to make the app available internationally and to allow content to sync quickly. We’ve heard you, and today we’re making Google Currents 1.1 available around the world. Hundreds of U.S. editions are now readable in your preferred language with a new publisher-selected translation feature, and local publishers can begin adding their content to the catalog through Google Currents Producer. Plus, a new dynamic sync feature improves your reading experience with fresh content wherever you are.

Whatever you’re interested in -- whether it’s science (Popular Science, Scientific American, Space.com), sports (Bleacher Report, CBS Sports, Surfer), business (Harvard Business Review, Inc.), celebrities (Celebuzz, HollywoodLife, Now magazine, TMZ), health & wellness (Men’s Health, Yoga Journal), design (Colossal, Dwell) or news (The Atlantic, PRI, Slate) -- it’s easy to find a great edition to read in Google Currents.

Read in more places

With this update, we’ve made Google Currents available globally, wherever apps are available on Google Play and the Apple App Store. International publishers, using Google Currents Producer, can now begin adding local content for an international audience, choosing where to make it available globally and whether to enable auto-translation. For example The Guardian in the UK, LaStampa in Italy, Financial Times Deutschland in Germany, ABC News in Australia, Neue Zürcher Zeitung in Switzerland and Hindustan Times in India have already started publishing editions with local content. Readers can also add their favorite local blogs which are instantly converted into Currents editions.

Read in your favorite language

To help you enjoy content in your preferred language, we’ve integrated Google Translate into Google Currents. Just press the globe icon while reading an edition, and you can automatically translate that edition to one of 38 supported languages. So it’s easier than ever to keep up with Italian and German sports (Corriere dello Sport, kicker.de), or read Scientific American, in your preferred language.

Read fresh content, automatically

With our new dynamic sync feature, you’ll always have fresh content to read. As you open each edition, new content is dynamically delivered, using a minimum of your phone or tablet's battery, bandwidth and storage. Those of you who travel on planes and trains can choose which editions you would like fully packaged for offline reading, including images.

Learn more about what’s new in Currents here.

Google Currents is now available for download on Google Play and in the Apple App Store, wherever apps are available. Whether you’re a reader or a publisher, we hope that Google Currents helps you easily experience the best content on the web, now in even more languages.

Posted by Mussie Shore, Product Manager

13 comments:

Sascha said...

Hey -- while I really appreciate the effort behind Google Currents, it seems strange and a bit annoying to me that swiping between pages (which is a quite essential part of the app) doesn't run smoothly on my Galaxy Nexus (4.0.4). No matter whether I switch pages with images or text-only, it always causes significant lags.
As Currents is already in version 1.1, I would be very pleased if you could fix that issue soon.
Thanks in advance -- Sascha.

FSTM KUIS said...

Works perfectly for my Galaxy Tab 10.1 with Honeycomb 3.2. Tqvm...

Anton said...

7Mb?? Sorry, that puts it out of range of my already overloaded HTC Desire, along with Google Earth, Google+ (!!), and a few other bloated items.

Unknown said...

Good work Google in making this avaliable to users outside the US.

How about doing the same with Google Play music for us users in Europe?

Unknown said...

Good work Google in making this avaliable to users outside the US.

How about doing the same with Google Play music for us users in Europe?

Dilydaydream said...

Google ebooks for UK n Europe?

Dilydaydream said...

Your time info is too close to the share button for the mobile version of the blogpost, it needs another carr return...jus a comment!!

Dilydaydream said...

Have downloaded it, seems ok, v much like feedly app feed reader...free options and can add more, but individually it doesnt jus pik up all google feeds...why would it if its subscriptions? The only thing is i cant share to my calendar without a gesture option...as my sony xperia notification bar is hidden with the app ...annoying for music event info...

Thailand Trip Advice said...

I have enjoyed Google Currents since the onset, being a displaced Expat, I travel the globe a lot and have enjoyed being able to pop into an internet cafe and sync Google Currents so I can read on the train or plane to stay updated on information. Just one thing I ask for is to eliminate the publishers that only publish links with short excerpts to the original article. Once I leave the internet cafe, those publishers are of no value.

Alexombie said...

I need to be able to turn off automatic sync. Is this possible now?

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Soapy said...

I don't suppose there are any plans to bring this to BlackBerry smartphones or the PlayBook tablet? I'm really disappointed by the fact Google seem to be leaving that platform behind in favour of Android and iOS -- it still has a huge user base, especially internationally, and I'd really like to see apps like Google Currents and Google+ on it.