Barnes & Noble announced that its Nook ereader would receive a software update on April 23, complete with three new features:
- Read In Store – allows Nook users to access entire books while at a Barnes & Noble store
- Basic Web browser – Use the color touchscreen to navigate.
- Games – Play Chess against NOOK with one of three levels of difficulty. Or get puzzled with Sudoku, choosing from four levels of play.
For support information on how to update your nook, view instructions and video on how to update your nook.
Barnes & Noble announced a software update for its Nook e-reader, version 1.3, complete with new features such as a Web browser and games, on April 23 and it is available now for download.
What’s new in V1.3?
- Read in Store: While in any Barnes & Noble store you can read complete eBooks.
- Games: Play Chess and Sudoku, but where’s the Farm Town?
- Wi-Fi: Connect to more Wi-Fi® hotspots and log in with ease. Plus, Wi-Fi® to nook”s home menu for faster access.
- Web browser (Beta): Connect to Wi-Fi® and explore the Web on nook”s E-Ink® display. Use the color touchscreen to navigate.
- Updated home screen: From the home menu (located on the color touch screen), get direct access to existing features including Wi-Fi® settings and Audio.
- Additional improvements to optimize nook’s performance.
“We’ve also made additional reading and device performance enhancements including improved page turn speed, faster access to previously opened e-books, enhanced color touch-screen navigation and more,” Paul Hochman, manager of Content and Social Media at BarnesandNoble.com, wrote in an April 23 posting on the Nook and BN eReader blog. “The new features and additional enhancements are available with the updated Nook software now available via manual download at www.nook.com/update.”
Hochman’s allusion to faster book access and page-turn speed seems to be a reference to early reviews for the Nook, some of which claimed that slowness and some unpolished features represented the biggest drawbacks for the device. Some readers are still complaining, stating that the update didn’t address core problems like merging B&N Content and My Documents into a single searchable location. Having half a series in one menu section and half in another section just because of where the ebook happened to be purchased users find annoying.
Barnes & Noble’s announcement comes at a time when the bookseller finds itself in strengthening competition against not only Amazon.com and its bestselling Kindle e-reader, but also Apple’s iPad, whose ebooks application is considered a viable threat to traditional ereader devices. In addition to selling the Nook through its Website and bookstores, Barnes & Noble now sells nooks at Best Buy. Amazon, which plans on selling the Kindle at Target stores starting on April 25.
Both Barnes & Noble and Amazon have issued e-reader applications for the iPad, hoping to extend their brands even onto a device meant to take their market share. Barnes & Noble’s ebook store is “device agnostic” — meaning owners of the iPad or Sony’s Reader can download titles from the site.
Frozen Screen Issue
The new update should also stop the screen from freezing. “We’re fixing the problem,” Anthony Astarita, vice president of digital products, said in an interview in his New York office on April 16. “Like any consumer product, you have issues that do come up. No product is 100 percent perfect.”
Hundreds of Nook owners have posted complaints online, including on nook’s blog, “It freezes almost daily,” Stacey Hendricks, a student at University of Louisiana at Lafayette, said in an e-mail to Bloomberg. “Assuming Barnes & Noble doesn’t whip this situation into shape pronto, I’ll likely be switching over to the iPad.”
Gloria Spink’s first Nook displayed garbled text. Barnes & Noble sent her a replacement last month. That one repeatedly froze, forcing her to open the device and remove the battery to unlock it, she said in a telephone interview.
“I said, ‘Enough and I want my money back,’” said Spink, a 63-year-old assistant buyer for Boyd Gaming Corp. in Las Vegas. “I returned the Nook and bought a Kindle online that same day.”
This response to the freezing will determine the Nook’s success, said Mike McGuire, a San Jose, California-based analyst for Gartner Inc., a technology research firm. “With hardware it’s not that there was a problem, it’s how you recover.”
So when will be able to play Farmville on the nook?
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