Big news just in from the Google Africa blog: ebooks will be available for download to Android phones and tablets via the Google Play store as of today. Books purchased through Play will also be available to read in a web browser or on iPads and iPhones.

That just leaves TV shows and videos as the holes in Google’s line-up. With games now officially available on iOS, it still leaves Apple slightly ahead in the value stakes, but Google is closing the gap.

There’s no details of which publishers have signed up for Play Books so far, but a quick scan through seems pretty comprehensive. Santiago de la Mora – Google’s director for print partnerships – says the figure is “hundreds of thousands” from “hundreds of publishers”. Certainly all the books I’ve purchased on Google Play overseas so far are now available on my phone.

While book lovers have had access to the Amazon Kindle store on all their devices for quite some time, more choice is always a good thing, and this could be very important for local South African publishers. As I mentioned in our feature on SA’s long-form specialist, Mampoer, last week the terms and conditions imposed on local publishers by Amazon are draconian. We’ll try and find out what Google’s are now.