… Barnes and Noble is adding Google Play to the Nook.
I remember when I looked at my first Nook Color, how excited I was to learn from the in-store sales representative that this great tablet supported Android, and how betrayed I felt when I learned that I’d have to root the device to actually install Android apps on it. Barnes and Noble, you (collectively) lied to me, and I’ve never gotten over it.
The rooting procedure always looked a little heinke to me, and I never did it – so my beloved Nook Color, which had the best form factor of any tablet I’d used, eventually ended up languishing as I couldn’t use it for most of what I wanted it for. I ended up using my phone as my primary reader, and occasionally my Asus Transformer Prime, though it was a bit big.
Now Barnes and Noble is opening up the Nook to Android applications, legitimately. I could have told them that trying to lock down their devices wouldn’t work. Steve Jobs tried it, with the iPhone and the iPad, but you know what? I didn’t buy an iPad. I bought a Nook Color for the free OS, then got cruelly disappointed. Good job, salesman. Bad job, B&N.
Well, now they’ve changed course, a little. Should I find an excuse to spend my piling-up B&N gift cards upon a Nook HD? Perhaps. But I already have a Nexus 7, which fits right into the form factor that the Nook should have occupied. Why get yet another tablet … especially when Barnes and Noble is dialing back its investment in the Nook?
I hope Barnes and Noble survives. I hope we’re not seeing another death spiral, a la Borders.
But it feels like too little, too late.
Still … I have all those gift cards.
-the Centaur
Pictured: A Nexus 7. Barnes and Noble, this could have been your device … but years ago, you betrayed my trust.
