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Google today is celebrating the 15th birthday of Play Books. The service started as “Google eBooks” on December 6, 2010.
Be sure to watch the “Introducing” video for a real blast from that era in Google design and branding.
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It was rebranded under Google Play in 2012 and has retained the branding to this day alongside the Google Play Store and Play Games. (The latter hasn’t been updated in ages — still using a Google Material Theme — and recent launches suggest it will just be folded into the Play Store. That said, Play Games on PC looks to be successful and is now generally available.)
As of today, Play Books has over 10 million ebooks and audiobooks, tens of thousands of book publishers, and availability in 75 countries. It’s available on Android, iOS, the web and Android Auto.
Google is marking the occasion with 15x Play Points on all Play Books purchases from December 5–7. Notably, this is available “regardless of your current Play Points level.”
As we celebrate 15 years of Google’s digital bookstore, we’re thankful for the authors, publishers, readers and Play Books team for their role in building this vibrant book community.
Recent updates to Play Books for Android brought Material 3 Expressive (short bottom bar) after it took ages for the last redesign and Dynamic Color to arrive. Another quality-of-life improvement is a modernization of the Settings page.
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