Google launches Android Newsstand, pulls together all of your subscriptions

Say hello to Google Newsstand, a brand new app for your Android phone or tablet which brings together all of your favorite news sources in one place. Do you subscribe to magazines, newspapers, blogs and news sites? Of course you do and Google is putting all of the full length articles, complete with images, audio and video right inside the app. Articles will be available for offline reading or can be bookmarked to read later.

Google Play Newsstand will offer more than 1900 free and paid, full length publications that you can subscribe or follow including:

• Newspaper Subscriptions: Full-length content from some of the world’s top newspapers including The Australian, The Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, The National Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
• Magazines: Hundreds of HD magazines like Better Homes & Gardens, The Economist, Esquire, Fast Company, Forbes, Game Informer, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Shape, TIME, Vanity Fair and WIRED, from publishers like American Media Inc., Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, TIME Inc., and more.
• Blogs: Your favorite blogs like Apartment Therapy, Colossal, Cool Hunting, Flavorpill, Saveur Daily, TMZ and The Verge.
• News sites: Leading news sites like ABC News, The Atlantic, CBS Sports, CNET, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, The Guardian, NPR, Reuters, The Telegraph, and more.

US, Canadian and Australian Android owners will receive an update to the Google Play magazines up over the next few days which will introduce Google Play Newsstand. Google Currents users can upgrade to Play Newsstand by downloading the new app from the Play Store. All of your favorite Currents news sources will immediately be transferred and ready to read the minute you open the new app.

The “end” of Google Currents doesn’t come as much of a surprise as Google never really seemed to push the app beyond its initial launch. Merging it with Newsstand only makes sense given that the app seemed to linger in the background against the likes of Flipboard, Zite and numerous other competitors in the space. Google says Currents will continue to be available for a little longer, but its clear in Google’s world that eventually Currents will disappear with the company now focused on Newsstand.

According to a Google spokesperson speaking to Engadget, Newsstand is evidently dropping on Android first but iOS will see its own variant of Newsstand sometime in 2014.

A spokesperson told us that Newsstand will be coming to Apple’s mobile OS early next year, primarily as a replacement to Currents. And, while you probably won’t be able to purchase subscriptions directly through the app, you will be able to pick up periodicals through the web storefront and have them delivered to your handset or tablet.

There’s a lovely video introduction below:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS9gmW7uFXo&w=560&h=420]