THE NOOK TABLET IS called a tablet for a reason. Just like other tablets, it can do lots of things other than letting you read books—notably running apps. Just as with all tablets and smartphones, the NOOK lets you download apps to do all kinds of nifty things, from playing music to playing games or keeping track of your diet. Bottom line: Anything you can do on a traditional tablet, you can do on your NOOK Tablet and NOOK Color. (And yes, that includes Angry Birds.)
Note
The NOOK Color runs apps as well, although it may not run all the apps that the NOOK Tablet can. For example, as of this writing, it cannot run Hulu Plus, although by the time you read this, that may have changed.
In this chapter, you’ll learn all about how to get apps, how to install them, how to manage them, and how to use them—including the built-in apps on your NOOK Tablet. You’ll also get advice on some great apps to download.
The NOOK Tablet runs the Android operating system, even though its interface doesn’t look like other Android tablets or smartphones you’ve seen. That’s because Barnes & Noble has customized the Android operating system for eReading and other purposes.
Note
The Android operating system was created by Google, which makes it available free of charge to tablet and smartphone manufacturers.
Because the NOOK Tablet is built on Android, it runs Android apps. But unlike many tablets and smartphones, it doesn’t give you the power to download just any Android app. Apps must get the OK from Barnes & Noble to run on the NOOK Tablet because of the company’s operating system customizations. The only apps you can run are those built into the NOOK Tablet or the ones you can download from the NOOK store. You’ll find you can’t download apps from the Android Market (http://market.android.com).
Note
You can, if you wish, root the NOOK to make it work like an ordinary Android device and give to run any Android app. When you do that, though, you may damage the NOOK Tablet, you void the warranty, and you get no support from Barnes & Noble. You also lose all of the eReader capabilities described in this book. Barnes & Noble also has made it very difficult to root the NOOK Tablet and NOOK Color. For details, see Chapter 17.
Running an app is simple. Press the NOOK button, tap Apps to see the apps in your Library, and then tap the app you want to run. You can also tap Apps on the Media bar to see the most recent apps you’ve run. Tap any to run them. Tap “My library” to see the rest of your apps in the Library. And you can, of course, tap an app on your Home screen, or any one on the Daily Shelf.
When you run an app and want to quit it, most the time you don’t need to shut it down. Just press the NOOK button to get to the Quick Nav bar and perform another task, or press the NOOK button twice to get to the Home screen.
Got an app that you love so much you want it always to be just a tap away? Then put it on your Home screen. You can do that and plenty more, including deleting it, adding it to a Library Shelf, and other nifty things as well. To do it, hold your finger on an app and from the screen that appears, choose the following:
Open. Runs the app. Of course, you could have just tapped the app’s icon, without going to all the trouble of opening this menu.
View details. Shows you details about the app. It’s the same information you saw on the screen before buying and downloading it.
Recommend. Lets you recommend the app to a friend. Turn to Tip for details.
Add to Home. Puts a shortcut to the app on your Home screen.
Add to Shelf. Lets you add it to a shelf that you’ve created in My Shelf. (See The Media Bar for details.)
Archive. Moves it off of your NOOK, but still keeps it accessible whenever you want to use it again. See Archiving Books and Periodicals for details.
Delete. Deletes the app from your NOOK. Be very careful when doing this, because unlike with archiving, you can’t retrieve the app if you change your mind later. If you decide you want to use it again, you have to buy it again.
The NOOK Tablet comes with a number of built-in apps, including for Netflix, Pandora, Hulu Plus (Chapter 8), Contacts (Chapter 15), playing music, viewing pictures and videos (Chapter 10), and more. For the full rundown on those apps, check out the chapters where they’re covered. The following pages tell you about three other notable apps built into the NOOK Tablet.
Note
Depending on when you bought your NOOK Color, it may not come with Netflix or Hulu Plus on it, and may not be able to run Hulu Plus. See the tip in Tip for more info on how you can get these apps onto your NOOK Color.
Crossword. You have a NOOK Tablet, so no doubt you’re a book lover. There’s a good chance that you’re a crossword lover as well, so try out this app. Fight the urge to tap the Hint button—that’s cheating!
Sudoku. With your NOOK Tablet, a good Sudoku puzzle is always within easy reach. You can choose from several levels of play, and there’s even a timer to track how long it takes to do a puzzle, so you can watch your skills improve. For help as you learn the game, there are Undo and Redo buttons and also a Hint button that you can use as a last resort.
Chess. Want to play chess but don’t have a partner nearby? You’ve got one on your NOOK Tablet. To play, drag a piece to the spot where you want to move it. It’s a nice app for a quick chess game, but it doesn’t let you play online against others, and doesn’t include extras like changing the difficulty level.
To get more apps, head to the NOOK Store by pressing the NOOK button and tapping Shop. On the top part of the screen, underneath “browse the NOOK Store,” you’ll usually find links to apps or sometimes also to categories of apps.
Tap the apps icon, and you’ll come to the main screen of the Apps store. At the top is a scrollable list of app categories, and beneath it are various lists, such as “Top Picks in Apps,” “Top Picks in Games Apps,” and others. Tap any category to see apps in that category. You may see subcategories, and in these subcategories you’ll usually see lists of apps at the bottom of the screen.
Note
On the main screen of the NOOK Store, you’ll also find lists of apps, which change over time —“Top Picks in Apps,” “What’s New in NOOK Apps,” and possibly others.
At some point when browsing the subcategories, you’ll see a list of all apps in the subcategory. Scroll through them until you see an app you’re interested in, and then tap the app for more details.
Tap an app, and you come to a screen that includes the name of the app, version number, app maker, description (supplied by the maker), price (or a button labeled Free), and a Share button. Tap the Share button to recommend it to others via email, Twitter, or Facebook (you can also Like it on Facebook). You also see the average rating of the app on a five-star basis, and how many people have rated it.
Tip
When deciding whether to pay for and download an app, be careful about using the ratings and reviews as your guide. For example, if there are only a handful of reviews and they’re all positive, the developers (or their friends) may be doing the rating. If there are dozens of reviews or more, it’s less likely that the developers and their friends are behind them all.
If you’re looking for other apps you might be interested in, tap the small up arrow at the bottom of the screen to see what other apps purchasers of this app also bought.
Note
To download apps, you need a Barnes & Noble account with a valid credit card (Tip).
Tabs across the top let you read individual reviews and see screenshots. You can filter reviews in multiple ways, including those rated most helpful by others, the most recent reviews, and so on. Just tap the drop-down menu in the upper right of the screen.
If you decide you want to pay for the app and download it, tap it the green price (or Free) button. The button turns into a gray Confirm button. Tap the button to download it; if the app was for-pay, the credit card associated with your Barnes & Noble account gets charged. A small green bar on the app’s icon displays the download progress. After it downloads, the button displays the word Open. Tap to run it now; later, you can run it the way you’d run any app (Running Apps).
Note
Most apps on the NOOK Tablet are for-pay rather than free, even if the normal Android version is free. For example, the popular Angry Birds game costs $2.99 on the NOOK Tablet but is free for other Android devices. And the popular Words with Friends costs $2.99 on the NOOK Tablet, even though it’s free on Android. One reason: The games are ad-supported on other Android tablets and phones, but not on the NOOK Tablet. (Don’t bother envying iPhone and iPad fans, though; both games are for-pay those devices, too.)
When you use an app, you may notice two small icons in the Notification bar that you don’t normally see. The one shaped like an arrow is a back button; tap it to go to what you were doing before opening the app. The other one, with a series of lines, is a menu button. Tap it for various options specific to the app. For example, in the Fandango movie app, the menu lets you go to your account, or switch to a view that shows movies or a view that shows theaters. Not all apps have these buttons.
Got an app you love so much that you want it always to be just a tap away? Put it on your Home screen—hold your finger on the app, and from the menu that appears, select “Add to home.”
There are thousands of great apps you can download, and you’ll want to spend lots of time browsing for them. The five described in this section are ones you might want to give a whirl, though—they’re among the best in class.
Are you a news junkie? Then you’ll want the great, free news app Pulse. It grabs articles from newspapers, magazines, and websites. Using Pulse, you grab articles and information from all over the Web and display them in a big tablet-friendly format with lots of photos and graphics. You customize exactly what kinds of stories and publications you want to show.
Tip
Geeks will want to know that the underlying technology that allows Pulse to accomplish all this magic is RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, a format that lets websites and blogs publish updates, and apps like Pulse grab them.
Tap any story to read it. To share the story, tap the Facebook or Twitter icons at the bottom of the screen. You can also share via email and in other ways by tapping the double-headed arrow icon. At the top of the screen, you can change your view of the story—either with or without all the fancy design elements. Tap the “me” button, and you get more features, including syncing your stories to other tablets, smartphones, and computers (if you use Pulse on them).
Pulse is already set up to grab a variety of news feeds from around the Web, but it’s easy to change that to your own selections. Tap the settings icon at upper left to add or remove news sources. Tap the + button, and you come to a screen that lets you add new sources. You can also add an entirely new page of stories from this screen by flicking to the right and adding more news sources.
There’s a lot more to Pulse as well. It’s free and it gives you great sources of information, so if you’re a news junkie, or even if you’re not, give it a try.
If you suffer from information overload, here’s your remedy. Evernote does a great job of capturing information from multiple sources, putting them in one location, and then letting you easily find them—whether you’re using your computer, your tablet, or another Android device.
Not only that, it’s free.
You organize all your information into separate notebooks, and can then browse each notebook, search through it, search through all notebooks, and so on.
No matter where you capture or input information, it’s available on every device on which you install Evernote. So if you grab a web page from your PC and put it into a notebook, that information is available on your NOOK Tablet, and vice versa.
You can capture information from the Web, by taking photos, by speaking, and by pasting in existing documents. And you can also type notes as well.
The upshot of all this? Evernote is the best app you’ll find for capturing information and making sense of it all.
Wonder what’s on at your local movie theater tonight? Like to find out what other people have thought about the movies? Want to buy tickets before you go?
Fandango does all that, plus more, and it does it for free. Launch the app, and then tap Movies to see a list of currently playing movies. Tap a movie, and you come to a page that lists the name, running time, rating, synopsis, overall rating, trailer, and theater where it’s playing. If the theatre lets you, you can buy tickets as well. Tabs at the top of the page lead you to more information, including reviews and director and cast information.
You can also see all the theaters near your home, find out their movie schedules, and buy tickets. When you launch the app, it doesn’t know your location, so it can’t give you those details accurately. Tap the small Menu icon at the bottom of the screen, select My Account, tap Location, and then enter your location. After that, you’ll be just fine.
You’ve got a NOOK, so you’re clearly a word person. If your love extends to word games, and you want to play with other word lovers, then you’ll want to get the popular Words with Friends app. (It’s a for-pay app, not a free one.)
It’s a game similar to Scrabble that you play against friends from Facebook, your Contacts List, Twitter, or other places. The app can even find random opponents for you to play against. One of the many great things about it is that you don’t need to play an entire game at once. You can start, play for a few minutes, go off and do something else, pick up the game where you left off...games can last for several days if you like, or you can play straight through. And you can also play multiple games at the same time.
Traveling to a city for business or pleasure? Then you’ll want to get the free City Guides from Trip Advisor. There are separate ones for different cities, so in the NOOK Store, type the name of the city you plan to visit along with the words City Guide to find it, like this: San Francisco City Guide.
You’ll get a great free app that tells you everything you want to know about visiting a city—what restaurants and sites to visit, what hotels are good, information about neighborhoods, local transportation, history, culture, architecture...even an interactive map. You’ll find ratings, individual reviews, directions and more.
There are guides from around the world. In fact, you may want to download some just to imagine visiting. Paris, anyone?
In a perfect world, apps would never misbehave. Unfortunately, it’s not a perfect world. An app may quit the moment you launch it, or cause your NOOK Tablet to restart, or do any number of odd things. If that happens, try these steps:
Launch the app again. There’s no particular reason why relaunch should work, but it often does. When you launch the app again, it just may work properly.
Archive or delete and reinstall. There may have been an oddball installation problem. So archive or delete the app, and then reinstall it. That action sometimes fixes the problem. When to archive and when to delete? If it’s a for-pay app you’ll want to archive rather than delete it, or else you’ll have to pay for it again.
Restart the NOOK Tablet. Just as restarting a computer sometimes fixes problems for no known reason, restarting the NOOK Tablet may have the same effect.
If none of this works, then it’s time to uninstall the app. Don’t fret; there are plenty more where it came from.