# I'm about done with Google Play Books...



## sfreemanoh (Jul 9, 2011)

I like the interface, it's comfortabley to read...but only being able to "download" to 3 devices is ridiculous. Has anyone else come across this and have a workaround? Before wiping and flashing a new ROM, I've even been going in and pressing the push-pin icon on the books until they go back to grey (which I thought meant no longer downloaded). I've also been doing nandroids before each flashing, so I can go back to a previous installation, but...this is annoying.


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## itsTreyG (Aug 10, 2011)

Very good question. I haven't bought any books yet but I would definitely like to know if there is a work around before I do.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus


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## Broadwayblues (Jun 10, 2011)

Not sure about the work around but the Kindle has books that can only download to one device at a time.

Three sounds better than one.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2


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## number5toad (Sep 13, 2011)

are those specific books? I have a few in my Kindle library that I downloaded to six or seven devices.

I've only purchased one Google Play book so far - the only thing I like more than the Kindle app is the page turn animation 

otherwise it's bog standard, or not as good as other apps in some situations.


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## sfreemanoh (Jul 9, 2011)

Yeah, I have probably 30 or so books in my Kindle library, and I've never experienced a device licensing issue.


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## bronocode (Jul 26, 2011)

The other thing I dont' like about Google books is not being able to download epub/pdfs and view them in there. At least Google Music, you can upload your own music. You can't do that with GB yet


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## number5toad (Sep 13, 2011)

I'd guess google wants to do that with both books and videos, but the licensing is a lot trickier. there was already a much more established framework for legal sharing, streaming and selling digital music before they got into that game...books and movies are locked up a little more tightly.


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## markyoung04 (Sep 22, 2011)

Broadwayblues said:


> Not sure about the work around but the Kindle has books that can only download to one device at a time.
> 
> Three sounds better than one.
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2


I currently have 325 books in my Kindle Account and have downloaded books to 2 desktops, a laptop, a phone, and my tablet at the same time - the only restriction I have ever found with Kindle is you can only have 7 devices registered under one username but when you blow away your tablet and reinstall you just have to go to "Manage Kindles" and de-register a device. You can rename your devices so you know where you are sending your book to. I have used Kindle for a long time due to the flexibility and the whispersync feature.

That all being said, I can not stand Kindle's current interface when put up against Google Books. There is a ton of wasted space on the screen, just feels bland. When I hold up the same book on the same device one in Kindle and one in Google Books I am able to get a lot more words per page on Google and still have a clean, easy top read interface.

So, can we have Amazon hire the developers for Google Books? After all, what do I do with my library?


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## Jasoraso (Jul 4, 2011)

bronocode said:


> The other thing I dont' like about Google books is not being able to download epub/pdfs and view them in there. At least Google Music, you can upload your own music. You can't do that with GB yet


This is what I am looking for too. The one thing I like about the Kindle environment, is that you can upload you own material, and that material is synced across all the kindle devices (kindle, kindle for android, kindle for PC etc).

Google Books needs to make this happen, just like they did with Google Music.


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## publicanimal (Apr 14, 2012)

Jasoraso said:


> This is what I am looking for too. The one thing I like about the Kindle environment, is that you can upload you own material, and that material is synced across all the kindle devices (kindle, kindle for android, kindle for PC etc).
> 
> Google Books needs to make this happen, just like they did with Google Music.


Google offers that functionality via Google Drive, just not in Google Books (yet?). You can upload your own files of any type to Google Drive and have that synced across all your devices. You get 5 GB for free. You can "pin" content from Google Drive just like Google Books. The uploading works just like the Google Music and/or Dropbox, you add the files to a folder on your PC and they automatically upload to your Drive in the cloud.

I could see the utility of having PDFs from Google Drive accessible in the Google Books, but being a long time Android user I'm pretty amazed with how well they've been able to integrate their cloud concept across multiple apps. I personally would prefer to keep my Google Books separate from all other PDFs, but that is just a personal preference, maybe in the future both products will evolve in a way that we can all have our cake and eat it too.


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