Announcement of Play magazines and TV shows coming at Google I/O?

We’re about an hour away from the start of the Google I/O 2012 keynote address, where we expect to learn all about Android Jelly Bean and the Nexus 7 tablet that will run it, but Google likely has a few other things up their sleeves. This might include the addition of magazine subscriptions and TV show rentals to the Google Play catalog. The two new formats are hinted at in newly uncovered segments of Google Play’s source code, which included the following lines:

• “This magazine issue is now available on your device.”
• “You have subscribed to this magazine. It is now available on your device.”
• “Your TV episode is now ready to watch.”
• “Your TV season is now ready to watch.”

The discovery was made by an industrious reddit user and hints that Google Play users will soon be able to purchase single issues or subscribe to magazines as well as view shows by the episode or series. Such services have been hinted at as accompanying the launch of Google’s Nexus 7 tablet as part of an effort to better compete with Amazon’s similarly priced Kindle Fire offering.

Chances are if the info is already in the code, the code is set to launch soon. And there is no better place to launch these new features than Google I/O. At least we won’t have to wait long to find out.

[via AndroidPolice]