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Barnes & Noble’s Nook HD and Nook HD+ tablets are about to gain access to a boat load of apps, games, music, videos, and books courtesy of the Google Play Store. The retailer is adding support Google’s content store to the pair of slates as well as a suite of mobile apps including Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube, and Chrome.
The deeper Google integration seems to be at odds with Barnes & Noble’s broader content strategy, but VP of ebooks Jim Hil is “confident that when people pick up a Nook device, they’re going to use the Nook shopping experience.” At the same time, the addition of Google Play could be appealing to consumers searching out a new Android tablet, so it’s a bit of a give and take situation.
Google Play will come as part of an over-the-air update for existing owners. It should ship out of the box with the Nook HD and HD+ in the future.
Kevin, I thought you left us?!
It only took that long to cover all there was to cover in the world of i. In fact, he took a short vacation, also.
These tablets just became a lot more interesting (and relevant).
Much better than the Kindle Fire’s now, in my opinion.
Should have been like this from the beginning.
This is great. Don’t forget they also have removable storage too.
Now these are actually worth buying. I might get myself one and stick Nova Launcher on it. Does anyone know how good the battery life is?
Are you back on Phandroid?
This might have made one of these my choice for my new tablet last fall, instead of my Galaxy Tab . Lack of access to all those apps was a big deal breaker for me.
I did the same thing. Was looking at these and the lack of development at the time on XDA made me get the galaxy tab 2 10.1. If the tablet had play store then I would have probably got this. my original nook color was awesome running cm7 but it was limited on cm9 and it was time to upgrade.
The need to root these just dropped lower now that they are installing the google suite for you. Just install a different launcher like go launcher or nova luancher or a myraid of others and you will not have to see the B&N experience at all. Hopefully they didn’t botch android up to much like they did with the original Nook Tablet where even themes was a nono until it got a proper Android build aka CM.
Just got the update. Changed the whole feel of the Nook reader
You can now download the Kindle app on to it.
Hello troll Kevin go back to ios website
This is pretty awesome! I think they’d have to do this to really compete in the tablet sphere. In fact I think even Amazon will have to eventually relent on the Kindle. At least if they ever want to get someone like me to buy one…otherwise Nexus 7 ftw!
Not relevant in any way to this article or your comment here, but I saw on another board you are interested in getting Google Wallet working on your phone, and I would love to help you stick it to Big Red. I am using Google Wallet right now and can confirm it is still working perfectly on my rooted Verzion Galaxy S III. Just let me know what type of phone you have and I’ll do what I can to help you get it set up.