Google Currents officially dead with latest update, pushes users to Play Newsstand

posted by Michael H. / Feb 19, 2014, 10:16 PM

Google Currents officially dead with latest update, pushes users to Play Newsstand

Google Currents never really got much traction from the start. Anyone in the market for an app that did what Currents offered were far more likely to go with a better alternative that had more support, like Flipboard. Then, when Google released Play Newsstand, it was obvious that Currents was on its way out. Now, Currents is officially dead.

Google pushed an update to the Currents app today which officially takes it offline. If you were to launch the app now, all it would do is present you with a

screen telling you that Google Play Newsstand has replaced Currents and it gives a link to launch you into the Newsstand app. All other functionality that had existed in Google Currents has been stripped out.

The Currents app even goes so far as to clean up after itself. When you run the updated version of the app and tap through to Newsstand, Currents will clear its app data and disable itself. Given that the update drops the storage footprint of the app from 5.4MB (plus news data) to just 860KB, it won't make much of an impact on your device even if you don't fully uninstall it.

If you are a Currents diehard, the old version of the app still works, but it is unclear if that will continue.

source: Android Police

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12 Comments

1. deathgod

Posts: 122; Member since: Nov 23, 2011

This story would have been great hours ago :(. Unfortunately I had my Currents app set to autoupdate, and man I'm pissed! Newstand just plain sucks! The navigation, layout, etc, is nowhere near as good as Currents is. This update should have been a manual one, where users got to choose whether they wanted to have their Current version uninstalled. Anyone who doesn't have a backup of Currents is screwed. You've been making some really bad moves lately Google...

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 10:27 PM 2

2. alrightihatepickingusernames

Posts: 474; Member since: Dec 29, 2013

Damn, I actually really liked Currents. Luckily I don't have auto update on anything for this very reason.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 10:47 PM 1

3. alrightihatepickingusernames

Havana haha haha haha, I just checked the most helpful reviews, almost all of them were one star and I didn't see any five star ratings. Hopefully they'll work on it... But I can't recall Google admitting to a mistake they've made...

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 10:50 PM 1

8. apple4never

Posts: 1064; Member since: May 08, 2013

find an older version apk and then just don't update

posted on Feb 20, 2014, 6:08 AM 1

4. chocowii

Posts: 478; Member since: Jan 30, 2014

Google Currents always do is slow my Nexus down.

posted on Feb 19, 2014, 11:36 PM 2

11. cezarepc

Posts: 718; Member since: Nov 23, 2012

True.

posted on Feb 20, 2014, 10:53 AM 1

5. Stuntman

Posts: 843; Member since: Aug 01, 2011

I never liked it. I use Pulse.

posted on Feb 20, 2014, 12:04 AM 2

6. 0

Posts: 242; Member since: Jan 07, 2014

New stand is like currents with newer UI. Why can't I fully uninstall currents on my nexus 7 ? Now I have a newstand app and a currents app that shows me the same information