Google takes on Amazon with mobile book service

The internet giant has made the original text of 1.5m books available to be accessed for free via iPhone or Android phones. A spokesman for Google's book search mobile team said, "We believe we've taken an important step towards more universal access to books."

Experts said they expected an online battle for the market. Stuart Miles, of gadget website Pocket Lint, said: "Google has obviously seen how Amazon dominated the online selling of real books, and wants to stop that happening again. By offering free, out-of-copyright books they can instantly offer this huge library.

"Google's approach is also very clever because it is costing them very little, as they don't have to develop their own hardware."

Amazon launched its electronic book reader, called the Kindle, in the US last year, although it has not announced when it will go on sale in the UK.

The New York Times reported that Amazon is "working on making the titles for its popular e-book reader, the Kindle, available on a variety of mobile phones."

Nintendo has already launched a catalogue of famous novels for its video games DS handheld console.