Google Books .APK file

[Logseman]

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=863124

Courtesy of Mitty1990 in XDA, here you have a working link for the Google Books APK file. This is particularly interesting for people outside of the US who don't seem to get access to the Market app yet. Curiously enough, it is translated to foreign languages already:

http://www.mediafire.com/?e8883c7ad1s924d

[SlowRain]

Thank you very much.

[Dulin's Books]

this is only working for 2.1 and above correct?

thanks for the link

[Logseman]

While I'm at it, let me do a small review of the app.

When the app is installed, you are confronted with a screen called "Books". Something like this, what Mitty1990 has in his/her device:
.

There is an option to "get ebooks" which takes you directly to the Google Books mobile website (which in my case, as I am Spanish, warns me that I can't buy recent books from it), and a search icon which allows you to browse for books inside the app. Nevertheless, purchasing or adding books to the library still requires firing up your browser.

When you acquire a book, you can click on "continue buying" but it will just send you to the main Google Books site. It doesn't give any recommendations à la Amazon for the time being.

Clicking on the "menu" button gives you 6 options, approximately called "Sort", "Manage ebooks", "Refresh", "Accounts", "Settings" and "Help".

1. Sort: it allows you to sort the books in your collection. The available criteria are: Recently read, Title and Author.
2. Manage eBooks: it allows you to delete the books from your collection, and to store your books to be read for offline reading (the drawing pin icon). The books, or whatever things are saved in your device, are stored in your SD card, though you can change that in the Settings.
3. Refresh: I'd daresay it refreshes your reading status with other devices, but I can't really say.
4. Accounts: if you have more than one account, you can choose which is the active one.
5. Settings: It allows you to see where your books (or ersatz-book-caches) will be saved; the rest of the menu is not interactive (an About function which lets us see it's the 1.0.16 version of the program, plus the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy)
6. Help: Tips on how to use the application , an Assistance Center which is a more detailed tutorial for the application, a customer support contact form and a bug tracker. The latter three need to go through the web browser.

As per the reading itself:

When we open a book and we click on the Menu button in our device, we have 5 or 6 options depending on the book.

1. About: summons the webbrowser (again...) and shows you information about the book you're reading.
2. Content: Table of contents of the book.
3. Original Pages/ Readable Version: in many books you can switch betwen a scanned unreflowable version and a more normal ebook. There are books where the latter option is not available.
4. My eBooks: Shows your catalog.
5. Settings: We can configure the following options:
   • 3 font sizes;
   • 3 line spacing choices
   • Left-justification or full justification
   • Day/Night theme
   • Take brightness setings from the system or not.
6. Help: exactly the same options as before

[HansTWN]

For those outside the US who want access to US only market apps there is the free program Market Enabler. You can set T-Mobile, Verizon, and some other providers from Europe (O2 Germany, etc).

Of course, a VPN connection also works. Only we have the slight problem that Google is leaving us in the cold with encrypted PPTP servers (Android will inevitablt drop the connection after a few seconds) and installing and running OpenVPN is a real pain. So market enabler is free and easy.

[hamlok]

This is particularly interesting for people outside of the US who don't seem to get access to the Market app yet.

Yes, it is very interesting and I will take it in my App-List in the German Forum.


(I hope my written English is not so bad.)