It’s always nice to see a company supporting its products after an erstwhile successor has been introduced, and it looks like Barnes & Noble is doing just that with its Nook Color tablet-reader. The bookseller just released a huge update to the Nook Color’s software, well over a year after its original release, and almost a month after the Nook Tablet relegated it to the second tier of Barnes & Noble’s hardware offerings. Customers who weren’t swayed by the incremental updates in the Nook Tablet will no doubt be appreciative.
The update focuses on more media consumption, with the most notable addition being baked-in support for Netflix streaming. Flixster is also coming along for the ride. Barnes & Noble is also touting “the largest collection og Marvel graphic novels” coming to the 7-inch tablet, apparently integrated into the Nook bookstore instead of in a stand-alone app on the Android Market. The comics are formatted specifically to look and read well on the Nook Color, making the jump from the more expensive Nook Tablet where they debuted.
All this is likely to pass nearly unnoticed by the Nook Color’s active community of Android modders. CyanogenMod 7 continues to be the most popular aftermarket ROM for the easily-hacked tablet, and CyanogenMod 9 will likely make Ice Cream Sandwich available to them early next year. That at least is one reason to go with the Nook Color over the Nook Tablet; Barnes & Noble placed a locked bootloader on the newer hardware, putting the kaibosh on most custom ROMs. Stock Nook Color users can download the update from Barnes & Noble’s website.
Yep…still no support for Android Marketplace. B&N is practically forcing users to hack the Nook. I guess it’s off to get CM now.
I prefer to spend time buying comics and collect them than reading it on my phone =). There’s a Marvel Comics (The First Published by Marvel Group) that I saw online for a really cheap price ~ The Collector’s MarketPlace and Club. Is this for real???