General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Tampa Bay Times Bill Maxwell laments "slow death of bookstores." I'm with him on that. [View all]napoleon_in_rags
(3,991 posts)I heard that the music/film anti-piracy efforts no longer try to block people from getting the content, they just assure that pirated content takes a certain amount of time to successfully get. That's enough to dissuade all but the poorest with lots of time (who can't buy anyway).
So with the current devices they keep the experience engineered to buy from the stores, really easily. I mean they put effort into it: My nook is Android based, which by default should be able to run android apps, but the only way I know of to get apps for it is through the B&N store, so I don't know how to get normal android apps onto it. We're talking about reducing functionality.
Here's the first search result for running 'kindle reader on nook', it shows the status quo pretty clearly:
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2011/11/16/nook-tablet-now-runs-kindle-aldiko-more-no-hack-required/#.URyey9tQDgw
Earlier today I was griping about how Amazon had quietly made it difficult to install competing reading apps; today I get to dance for joy because Ive learned how to install third party apps on the Nook Tablet.
A reader tipped me to the secret (Thanks, Geert). Theres a thread over on the XDA-Forums where someone discovered a loophole in the Nook Tablet firmware.
Update: This trick is dependent on a loophole which B&N closed some time back. These instructions no longer work.