Like Amazon’s Kindle Fire devices, Barnes & Noble’s Android-powered Nook HD and Nook HD+ tablets have always relied on the company’s proprietary app store for software distribution.

While this ensures that every app you download will work well on your slate, it also means that the app selection is limited, and nowhere near that of Android’s own Google Play store.

But that all changed today when Barnes & Noble announced it will finally be bringing Google Play to its tablets.

Thanks to those leaked screenshots that appeared on Tuesday, we’re pretty confident that Google Babel is no longer just a rumor, but a real product that’s patiently waiting to get its grand unveiling. And according to sources that are familiar with Google’s plans, it’s worth getting excited about.

They claim Babel aims to be “everything we have ever asked for in a unified messenger service,” with cross-platform syncing and a “first class iOS experience.”

While Google’s Android platform may be the biggest rival to iOS, the search giant is happy to support users who choose Apple’s device. In fact, thanks to apps like YouTube and Google Maps, Google is the App Store’s top publisher, beating Apple on its own turf.

Google has countersued British Telecom, a multinational telecommunications company based in the United Kingdom, with a new patent infringement lawsuit filed in the U.S. and the U.K. BT first took legal action against Google back in 2011, but Google has called its complaint “meritless,” and accuses the company of “arming patent trolls.”

While iOS may not be as flexible or as customizable as Android, on the whole it looks a whole lot nicer. Android is steadily improving, that’s for sure, but it’s hard to deny that iOS developers appear to spend more time making their apps prettier, even if you’re a diehard Android fan.

And that was proven when Chris Hulbert, an iOS developer, went to work at Google for three months. In a post on his blog, Hulbert reveals the differences in attitude towards design for iOS and Android, which help explain why Android apps aren’t quite as pretty as they could be.