Nook Color Android app store coming in April along with Flash support
According to the HSN Web site, Barnes & Noble is launching the Nook Store in April and giving Flash support to the Nook Color. — While plenty of people have “rooted” their Nook Colors with custom firmware that allows …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Android-based, full-color Nook Barnes & Noble launched in October 2010 was pitched as an e-reader first, and reviewers treated it as one — but hackers immediately saw the Android underneath. By December, rooted NookColors were running the Kindle app, an embarrassment the company could neither prevent nor ignore.
The April Nook Store, surfaced via an HSN product listing and picked up by Electronista, is the official answer: instead of fighting the rooters, Barnes & Noble is adopting their playbook, turning the device into a sanctioned app platform while Flash support closes the web gap reviewers flagged in the Nook Color review.
First-order effects
- Nook Color owners get a legitimate route to Android apps in April, ending the choice between warranty-voiding custom firmware and a locked reading device.
- Barnes & Noble converts hardware it already sold by the millions into tablet-class products overnight, with Flash support directly answering the iPad-era objection that the web experience is incomplete.
Second-order effects
- Amazon's Kindle app now faces an official storefront on rival hardware rather than thriving only on hacked units, sharpening the Barnes & Noble–Amazon contest over whose ecosystem owns cheap color screens.
- Developers gain a new low-end Android distribution target, and Barnes & Noble must run curation, billing, and updates for an app business it did not have three months earlier.
Third-order effects
- The e-reader category is dissolving into budget Android tablets defined by app stores rather than page turns, forcing every dedicated reader maker to choose between opening up and losing relevance.
- Retailers are learning that a content store, not the screen, is the moat — which pushes device pricing down and ecosystem control up across the industry.
The trend: Dedicated e-readers are converging with low-cost Android tablets as booksellers bolt app stores and media playback onto reading devices to defend their ecosystems.