Google recently released Google Currents for Android and iOS. In many ways, this news-curation app is similar to the outstanding Flipboard. In some ways, it's very different. Google Currents is off to a fantastic start, but its lack of social features -- especially the lack of deep Google+ integration -- is puzzling. Check out my first impressions and several screens of Google Currents.
Initially, the most striking thing about Google Currents is that it's aesthetically pleasing. Google is great at many things, but design and UI have been its week points, historically. A lot of that has changed in 2011. The latest versions of Google's web products, Android 4.0, and new services like Google Music are easily the most beautiful products the company has ever released. You can add Google Currents to that group too. It's a well-designed app that looks great.
Get started with Google Currents is a snap. After signing in with your Google ID, you can select which news sources you want to pull from. There's a great selection of launch partners including Salon, Al Jazeera English, The Daily Beast, io9, and more. You can also add "curator" channels to get articles selected by Internet tech celebs like Robert Scoble, Guy Kawasaki, and Thomas Hawk. In the future, there will be paid content you can subscribe to. A lengthy initial sync period happens after you've selected your sources -- this is something you definitely want to do over WiFi rather than 3G or 4G.
Since Google Currents is tied to your Google account, your selections are available on any Android or iOS devices in your arsenal. After setting the service up on my iPad 2, I downloaded the app on my iPhone and one of my Android phones. Sure enough, all my channels were there in exactly the order I placed them in. Flipboard also has accounts for syncing across iOS devices, but it doesn't have an Android app (yet).
From my brief time with the app, reading articles in Google Currents was mostly enjoyable. Everything was easy to navigate and most of the content played nicely with the iPad. I did have some issues when articles opened up the in-app browser. For example, the slideshows on the Bleacher Report channel are just the standard web page and aren't formatted for tablets. The incongruity is annoying.
Although synced articles are available for offline reading, the app lets you save content to other offline-reading services like Instapaper and Pinboard. Articles can be shared socially through Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Google+. Unlike Flipboard, Google Currents does not pull content from your Facebook and Twitter feeds. I'm actually shocked that it doesn't pull from Google+ feeds. This is a curious omission and a wasted opportunity. Perhaps this functionality will be added later, but I'm perplexed as to why Google would launch this product without heavy social-media features.
Aside from the lack of social-media features, I'm impressed with Google Currents. It's a strong first effort and I expect it to get much better in the near future. It's clean, easy to use, works across multiple platforms, and offers great offline readability. As a frequent flyer, I'm particular fond of that last feature. Having said all that, when I'm online I still like Flipboard better. A lot of that is just habit, but a good part of it is Flipboard's superior social features. Google Currents is off to a great start, but it won't replaced Flipboard for me just yet.
Are any of you using Google Currents? If so, I'd love to hear how your experience with the app has been. Drop me a line in the comments section if you have a moment.
