Barnes & Noble isn’t done with its original tablet. The Nook Color is over a year old and it just got its largest update to date that brings Netflix, Flixster, and access to Nook Comics and PagePerfect Nook Books.
The Nook Color paved the way for the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet by showing there’s a market for a content-driven low-cost tablet. The Nook Color was almost instantly a hit… → Read More
The Nook Color is getting its first dedicated Twitter application today, an app called Tweek built by the boutique software consultancy DIG based in Tampa. To be clear, this isn’t the first app on the Nook Color to support Twitter. There’s already Seesmic, for example, which provides access to Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz and more. Celebrity Tweets, meanwhile, aggregates the musings from over… → Read More
Last Friday, Amazon sent out invites to a press conference being held this coming Wednesday. They didn’t give away any details in the invite, but given our scoop earlier this month, everyone assumed it was to unveil the new Kindle tablet. We can now confirm this is correct. And we know a bit more.
On Wednesday morning in New York City, Amazon will unveil the Kindle Fire. Yes, this is the name… → Read More
It’s called simply the “Amazon Kindle”. But it’s not like any Kindle you’ve seen before. It displays content in full color. It has a 7-inch capacitive touch screen. And it runs Android.
Rumors of Amazon making a full-fledged tablet device have persisted for a while. I believe we were one of the first to report on the possibility from a credible source — the same person who accurately called… → Read More
Barnes and Noble’s Nook Color eReader is a fan favorite, not only because it’s great for reading, but also because with a little hackery it becomes a surprisingly decent Android tablet. A new report from Taiwan today indicates that Barnes and Noble has a sequel in the works, and that it could hit stores shelves as early as this month, potentially before Amazon’s own big unveiling. → Read More
Getting Android on a Nook Color isn’t so much hacking anymore. It’s pretty damn easy at this point. But MeeGo, well, MeeGo is a different story. It apparently took one week of work to get the mobile OS onto the Nook Color, but the results are pretty impressive. It looks stable, quick and mighty sexy. Video after the jump. → Read More
Well, after several leaks, an SEC filing, and random speculation from random bloggers, Barnes & Noble just sent out an invite for a Special Announcement. Ready for more random speculation from a random blogger? Here! We! Go! → Read More
Barnes & Noble just announced that Nook Color users have downloaded over 1 millon apps so far, including Angry Birds, Drawing Pad, and Pulse. Obviously 1 million apps in comparison to the numbers downloaded (notice they didn’t say “sold”) is fairly paltry but it’s a great start.
This bit of news confirms what we’ve been saying for a while: the Nook is kind of a stealth Android device and… → Read More
Tablets and electronic book readers are on a collision course. In this episode of Fly or Die , ChrunchGear editor John Biggs and I discuss the pros and cons of the new BlackBerry Playbook and the Color Nook from Barnes & Noble. The PlayBook is fast and a solid effort from our much-beleaguered Canadian friends. But is it too little, too late?
If you are a BackBerry user and want a tablet… → Read More
B&N officially made the Nook Color the best iPad alternative tablet last week with the addition of email, calander, and apps. It was already a fan favorite with those features and more, but only by way of a healthy dose of modding. Now anyone can buy the Nook Color and most of the features modders have been enjoying for months. If you’re going to buy it, why not snag it from Best Buy… → Read More
The Nook Color has always been considered a wannabe Android tablet and the latest update makes the 7–incher more tablet than ereader. Previously, modders opened up the platform to all sorts of Android tomfoolery, allowing users to run nearly stock Android builds that brought email, proper web browsing and apps to the device. Never mind that nonsense, Barnes & Noble just added those features… → Read More
The comments on yesterday’s post concerning the Xoom’s bungled launch stated loud and clear that people want inexpensive Android tablets — or at least that the high MSRP was the Xoom’s undoing. The thought is that if you’re going to spend over $500 on a tablet, the iPad is the only choice, which therefore makes the $800 Xoom a no-sale. I sort of agree with that even… → Read More
Barnes & Noble just announced that they’re opening their Nook platform to developers and will now begin accepting apps. If you thought this was a great opportunity to submit your “Fart Blaster” or “Ragdoll Boobies” app, think again: B&N will be running an “app review/acceptance process that will follow the company’s content acceptance policies as with… → Read More
This, multiplied by a million minus 1 million Digitimes “sources” are stating that 3 million Nooks Color have rolled off the assembly line and into stores over the past year, giving the Nook Color firmly at 50% of the “iPad-like” tablet market. They estimated 600,000-700,000 sales per month in January and February during the post-holiday gift card redemption season. → Read More
Looks like HSN wasn’t lying when they said the Nook Color would be getting an update next month. Of course, they continue to lie about the price of the device ($500, HSN? Really?), but that’s a whole other thing. → Read More
While the Nook Color may be a popular tablet for hacking, it’s also just a plain ol’ e-reader — or so they say. Now that they’re adding the Nook Store, a device-specific market for apps, like that on the Galaxy Tab.
It’s not the full Android Market, but if you’re looking to augment your Nook Color a bit, this is will be easier than hacking it.
Also, it appears that HSN thinks the Nook… → Read More
Now, this isn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff, but it does really demonstrate the fact that all tablets (especially the more recent and hackable ones) are just small computers. Anything’s possible — convenient, perhaps not, but if you’re looking to take full advantage of the hardware you’ve just bought, there are definitely ways to go about doing that. → Read More
Microsoft has filed suit against Barnes & Noble, creators of the Nook and Nook Color e-readers, as well as the manufacturers of those devices. The companies allegedly infringe on a number of patents filed between 1998 and 2005, generally applying to UI elements associated with browsing and downloading information. Like many patents from that period (for example those cited by Paul Allen in… → Read More
You know the drill: Valentine’s Day is next week so here’s come Nook Color cases that would make great gifts. Herp derp. We looked at Kindle cases yesterday so it only makes sense to look at the B&N counterpart. Not surprisingly, there’s a much smaller accessory market for Nook Color cases and that’s reflected in this gift guide. There simply aren’t that many to… → Read More
Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) just recently got its first SDK release, and it looks like the enterprising hackers in the Android community have already ported it to the Nook Color hardware. Well, partially. It’s a “zombie” made by mixing the SDK with the Nook’s kernel, and it runs like a dog. Getting hardware acceleration (a major part of the UI snappiness in Honeycomb) working… → Read More
Reading and books: probably the most fantastic gifts possible. That said, the Nook Color can do books, magazines, simple games, and browse the web all on an Android system. It’s been called an iPad light and that’s a great description, really. Normally these run $249.99 in Barnes & Nobel stores, but as the last item in our 12 Days of Christmas giveaway extravaganza, it’s… → Read More
Reading and books: probably the most fantastic gifts possible. That said, the Nook Color can do books, magazines, simple games, and browse the web all on an Android system. It’s been called an iPad light and that’s a great description, really. Normally these run $249.99 in Barnes & Nobel stores, but as the last item in our 12 Days of Christmas giveaway extravaganza, it’s going to one of our… → Read More
I’m not sure there was every any real conviction that the Android Market would eventually make it to the Nook Color, but nevertheless, Barnes & Noble has made it clear that no, there’s no chance. The Nook Color will have apps made just for it (the SDK was recently released), but beyond that, apps are verboten. → Read More
B&N has high hopes for the Nook Color. High expectations is actually more like it. The company’s chairman Len Riggio recently in an article, “B&N is manufacturing Nook Colors at a rate of 18,000 per day and is loading up a 747 every four to five days to bring devices to the U.S. from China” So yeah, for B&N’s sake, hopefully at least a few of you have the Nook Color on your wish list. → Read More
The Nook Color is starting to make minor waves (in spite of my prejudice) as it’s really quite a lot of machine for $250. And now the SDK has been opened up, which should allow the usual suspects to adapt their existing Android apps to the Nook’s hardware.
It’s not like the Nook Color is some undiscovered country, though, filled with exotic future tech. It’s just a mid-range tablet with a nice… → Read More
Not long after the original Nook came out, it was hacked, and progress on that front has been consistently documented over at NookDevs. The latest update to the Nook Color page indicates that yes, the new device has been rooted in part, a new UI installed (LauncherPro), and apps side-loaded to the “extras” section of the native UI. → Read More
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