NookTablet
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Refresh Roundup: week of January 30, 2012
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
Barnes & Noble readying 'e-reading device' for spring, doesn't want to talk about it
Oh spring, flowers blooming, bees buzzing, the smell of new e-readers in the air. According to The New York Times, the folks over at Barnes & Noble's digital team are putting the finishing touches on a "fifth e-reading device," to be released during the aforementioned season. Not a lot of details on that at the moment -- the bookseller's not spilling the beans. Given last year's release schedule, timing-wise the device would fall closer in line with the company's e-ink line of products, so perhaps the non-tablet Nook line still has a bit of fight left in it, after all.
Nook Tablet gets easy root shortcut via SD card (video)
As the (admittedly niche) battle for root access wages on between the Nook Tablet creators and its end users, a new shortcut's been discovered for unlocking the Android-based slab -- and you'll need an SD card to do the business. The new technique, courtesy of xda-developers forum member Indirect, works on all tablets up to version 1.4.1, requiring the installation of some key files onto the card and a reboot to unleash the might of Google's Android Market. Those interested in a Google app hook-up for their Nook should check the video below and visit the source for those all-important files.
Nook Tablet bootloader bypassed, Android 4.0 takes its first steps onto the platform
No points for calling this one, but it looks like Android 4.0 is well on its way to the Nook Tablet -- in a decidedly unofficial manner, of course. Just a few days after the tablet's bootloader was bypassed, developer Brandon Bennet (aka Nemith) has now apparently managed to get an early version of the Android 4.0-based CyanogenMod 9 up and running on the device, although you'll still have to wait a bit longer for something that's actually useable. What's more, some other developers have also managed to get the tablet to boot from a microSD card, and there's been some progress with Ubuntu on the tablet as well. Hit the links below for all the details and the latest from the xda-developers forum.
Barnes & Noble offers discounted Nooks with one-year subscription to The New York Times
In the market for an e-reader and a subscription to the digital edition of The New York Times? Then Barnes & Noble has a new promotion you might want to consider. From now through March 9th, it'll give you a Nook Simple Touch for free or a Nook Color for $99 if you also sign up for a one-year New York Times subscription at a rate of $19.99/month. That's a savings of $100 in both cases, and the subscription also includes access to the New York Times website in addition to the Nook version. Alternatively, you can get $50 off the Nook Tablet (bringing it down to $199) with a subscription to People, which will run you $9.99/month. Complete details are at the link below.
XDA dev provides means to block Nook Tablet OTA updates
Worried that an OTA update will put a crimp in your Nook Tablet modding activities? Then you may want to follow the lead of xda-developers member Indirect, who has managed to tweak the tablet to block all OTA updates and kindly provided the means for you to do the same. That involves installing a few files on your device (another method is also available that involve tweaking some files), but Indirect says that the process "holds no risk," and that it won't prevent you from buying books from Barnes & Noble. Complete details can be found at the source link below.
Plex media app: streaming soon to Nook Tablet and Color
Well, well, if it isn't the famed iOS and Android media jock (read: Plex) making its way to the Nook universe. The application's now gone through yet another good-to-go regime, and if all goes according to plan, it should be hitting Barnes & Noble's virtual stores in the coming days. For those of you out of the loop on Plex's offerings; the service acts as a media server ready to stream online and locally stored content, which are great features to have -- especially when someone limits how your internal storage can be used. We've got no info on how much cash you'll have to spend to start using the goods on your Nook slates, but we can imagine it'll be around the same ($4.99) as its other platform variants.
Nook Tablet update closes sideloading loophole, lacks holiday spirit
Remember all that extra functionality your Nook Tablet used to have? Well, that's what memories are there for. The recently-released Nook 1.4.1 firmware update apparently prevents the Nook Tablet from installing Android apps from non-Barnes & Noble sources. As a result, the unit is confined to the roughly 2,000 apps available through B&N's app store (many of which are priced higher than their Android Market equivalents). This lockdown has already been performed on the Nook Color and trying to sideload a new title will pop up a warning that only apps from the Nook store can be installed on the device. At least it appears that third-party apps already on the tablet will continue to run and there's always the hope of a custom ROM that could reenable the feature on Christmas morning.
'Lite version' of Ubuntu takes Nook Tablet for a spin, ROM can't come soon enough (video)
We've heard the promises of bringing Ubuntu past its comfort zone and into the mobile space, but who wants to wait until 2014 when a home remedy can deliver precisely that right now. XDA-Developers AdamOutler and Loglud have been grooming a way to bring the OS to your Barnes & Noble tablet, because -- you know -- we're all longing for slates with desktop-scale operating systems on them. At the moment, you can get a quick glimpse of Ubuntu running on the Nook, but porting can only be done via a VNC Server, which opens up plenty of potential avenues for lag to mar the experience. Notably, the delays should all but vanish once a ROM solution becomes available. Now, if we could only get Jane Lynch to sing her way through letting us know the Nook Tablet can also run Ubuntu, we'd be set. Have a peek at the Glee-less demo vid just after the break. [Thanks, orangejuice]
Nook Color gets multimedia upgrade, further blurs the tablet battle lines
Barnes & Noble's Nook Color is getting a piece of that promised multimedia upgrade. This round features video content from the likes of Netflix and Flixster, access to comics from the true believers at Marvel and a few other tweaks, like the ability to read books in landscape mode, to fully take advantage of that seven-inch display. The update further blurs the lines between the Color, which began life as little more than a color screen e-reader and the recently introduced Nook Tablet, which features souped up internals but an otherwise similar design. The Color is currently priced at $199 -- $50 less than the Tablet -- and will be getting more software upgrades in the future, including access to music services like Pandora and Rhapsody. Press info after the break.
Barnes & Noble's Q2 earnings reveal Nook to be a $220 million business, Nook Tablet said to be fastest-selling yet
Barnes & Noble's second quarter earnings weren't all good news for the company -- it reported a net loss of $6.6 million and an ever-so-slight dip in total sales from $1.90 billion to $1.89 billion -- but it did have a fair bit to boast about on the technology side of things. Sales on its B&N.com website increased 17 percent year-over-year, totaling $206 million for the quarter, and the value of the company's Nook business (including devices and content) now stands at $220 million, up a full 85 percent. The company also revealed that its new Nook Tablet has been the fastest-selling Nook device to date, although it's not providing any specific sales numbers, noting only that it expects to sell "millions of devices" during its third quarter. Additional figures can be found at the source link below.
Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet review
Back in April, the Nook Color underwent a magical change of sorts: a software update that transformed the device from a color screen e-reader into an honest to goodness Android tablet. It was the company's first swipe at the space -- a backdoor approach that beat out fellow e-reader manufacturers like Amazon and Kobo. Its follow-up, the Nook Tablet, marks the company's first out-of-the-box shot at the consumer tablet market. Not to mention, it also goes head to head with the Kindle Fire, a device that's sure to be one of the best-selling gadgets of the holiday season, thanks to its price and wide content selection. Does the Nook Tablet have what it takes to topple the Kindle Fire? Do the product's benefits justify its $50 premium over Amazon's device -- or the recently discounted and soon to be upgraded Nook Color for that matter? Find out the answers to these questions and so, so many more, after the break.%Gallery-139965%%Gallery-139473%
Nook Tablet gets torn down, mysteries of the carabiner unlocked
After last week's Kindle Fire teardown, Barnes & Noble's new slate must have been quaking in its boots. The Nook Tablet just had its moment under the knife, courtesy of screw driver-packing site iFixit. There's really not a whole heck of a lot of surprising things happening inside the $249 device, according to the site. There's a battery that's still emblazoned with a "NOOKCOLOR" under the model number, in spite of the new tablet's better battery life. And then there's 16GB of storage made by SanDisk and that 1GHz dual-core processor. Lots of shots of tablet guts in the source link below.
Nook Tablet gets rooted, bootloader stays under lock and key
Jealous of that root-ready Kindle Fire, but not ready to trudge through the Amazon to get it? Don't worry, you can stay huddled up with your Nook Tablet and get all the device rooting you want -- with a few caveats. Although the good folks on the XDA Forums haven't unlocked the slab's bootloader just yet, they've managed to root the tablet all the same. Jumping through a few technical hoops (or stumbling across forum user Indirect's one-click Windows utility) will score you access to the Android market and another way to sideload apps on the souped up slate. Custom ROMs? Not yet; in addition to killing the root with every device reboot, the locked bootloader is keeping the Nook's tweaked build of Android 2.3 front and center. Hit up the source link below to get started. Update: Indirect has updated his forum post to clarify that the root is permanent. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Switched On: Between a Nook and a hard place
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. In the 1988 comedy Coming to America, a blatant McDonald's rip-off named McDowell's draws the legal ire of the empire built by Ray Kroc. In explaining his pathetic defense that includes noting that McDowell's uses golden arcs instead of golden arches, the eatery's manager notes that while both the Big Mac and his Big Mick both include the 1970s jingle-immortalized ingredients of two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, the McDowell's flagship burger bun has, in fact, no sesame seeds. This state of differentiation isn't a far cry from what characterized some of the earliest 10-inch Honeycomb devices -- a few fractions of an inch of thickness, a higher-quality display, a full-sized USB port, an hour or two of running time and some bundled apps constituted how many of the tablets asserted their competitiveness. Of course, there was the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer with its keyboard add-on and its follow up, the Eee Pad Slider, which finally brought an integrated one. But whether it's been from a lack of options for manufacturers or disadvantages of the overall Honeycomb approach, larger Android tablets have made limited inroads versus the similarly sized iPad and are now going after it more aggressively on price.
Kindle Fire vs. Nook Tablet...fight!
There seems little doubt that the Kindle Fire will prove one of the holiday season's biggest hits. At $200, the budget tablet will no doubt prove too good a deal to pass up for many consumers not ready to make the price commitment to the industry-leading iPad or a top-tier Android tablet like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Of course, the Fire wasn't the only budget Android tablet to launch this week -- heck, it wasn't even the only budget Android tablet launched by an e-reader producer. Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet also, conveniently, hit stores earlier this week. The company took what it got right with the Nook Color, souped it up a bit internally and wound up with a solid competitor to the Fire. So, which of these products should budget-friendly gadget shoppers pick up this holiday season? We take a look at their hits and misses after the break.
Nook Tablet forgets to use protection, lets outside apps in
In the annals of history, the scrappy fight betwixt the megaliths of e-reading and their respective tablet progeny will yield an underground victor. Much like the sleepy hacker hit that was the Nook Color, Barnes and Noble's big bro tab looks to be carrying on that legacy of unapproved use and this time there's a lot less microSD card swapping required. In fact, there's none needed at all, as the barrier for entry here is super low. All it takes to sidestep B&N's app store for a host of third party options (like Amazon's App Store shown above) is the tab's own browser. Yes, it's almost that simple and also kind of hit or miss. See, once you attempt to install an application via the web, a previously hidden settings menu should pop up asking for permission. Grant the slate access, find the app in your download queue, re-install it and, presto magico, it'll work and then... vanish from your homescreen. But don't fret, the app's still there, you'll just need to search for it using the "n" hardware button. Confused? Excited? Unsure of how to feel? Why not just give it a go and report back in the comments below.
Nook Tablet limits internal storage for non-B&N purchased content to 1GB
Well, this is definitely a bummer. Barnes & Noble has spent a fair amount of time talking up all of the Nook Tablet's internal advantages over the Kindle Fire, a list that includes 16GB of storage to the Fire's 8GB. That particular spec may not be quite as good as it looks on paper, however. It seems that Barnes & Noble is currently limiting internal storage on the Android slate to 1GB of content not downloaded directly from B&N. Bummer, right? Especially for those expecting to store their multimedia content on the device. It's not all bad, though. Keep in mind that, unlike the Fire, the Nook's got a not-so-secret weapon -- expandable memory via a microSD card slot located behind the tablet's distinctive loop. We've reached out to B&N for comment, and we're guessing a firmware update will remedy this PR nightmare in 3... 2... 1.... Update: Barnes & Noble confirmed that the above numbers are correct, but added that future multimedia download plans from third-party vendors will utilize the space currently devoted to B&N content only.
Nook Newsstand getting Condé Nast publications (except Vogue)
After all of our tablet stories, the first question people ask is "But will it run Vogue?" Fortunately for all of you who are desperate to strike a pose and let your bodies move to the music, it won't be long now. Condé Nast is bringing 17 of 18 titles to Nook Tablet, the only omission being Vogue; which is coming in early 2012. Until then, you'll be able to enjoy the rest of the publisher's stable including Glamour, GQ, Teen Vogue and The New Yorker from the end of November. You can purchase individual issues or an annual subscription, print subscribers will get the digital edition free of charge and anyone who does pay will get a fortnight's trial. The only downside to the trial is that it's significantly shorter than the three months offered by the same publisher on the Kindle Fire. There's plenty more details after the break, where we've got a press release all waiting for a closeup.
Nook Tablet comes off the shelves one day early for one lucky customer
Now, we can't promise you'll have the same luck as our fortunate tipster if you wander out to your local Barnes & Noble, but it does seem that at least one location is handing over Nook Tablets a little bit early. Not to be outdone by its bitter rival, the Kindle Fire, the slate with the brick-and-mortar bookstore roots also started moving 24-hours ahead of its scheduled November 16th release -- though, in slightly less official fashion than Amazon's device. If the image of the unboxed slab above isn't enough to convince you, check out the bonus receipt pic after the break.
