14 DAY TRIAL // Looks like Barnes and Noble may have finally finished customizing the software of the Nook Tablet so that it stands apart from all other slates, although this may not be such a good thing.
Giving a product a feature or two that makes it stand out among others of its kind is all well and good.
Alas, this is not exactly what Barnes and Noble did to the Nook Tablet with the newest firmware update.
In fact, one might say that the bookstore chain did the exact opposite: limit the usability.
Said update, v1.4.1 (found here) is said to perform some “minor systems enhancements.”
What really happens, however, is that the Nook Tablet no longer allows for the installation of third-party apps.
In other words, only B&N's own or approved software can be installed, limiting the number of choices to about 2,000 (most of them not particularly awe-inspiring in terms of entertainment potential) instead of many thousands.
This is different from the stance that B&N had adopted in regards to the forerunner of the Tablet, the Nook Color e-reader.
While it didn't seem to mind hacks and mods all that much, it definitely is against such things happening to the tablet.
At least apps that were already installed before applying the update still work, or so The Ebook Reader has found, but trying to install a new one gives an error message saying that only those from B&N's Nook Store can be loaded.
So far, there is no official statement that this was a purposeful decision, although one could argue that the explicit error message is a clear enough assurance of that.
Nonetheless, considering that the update essentially dumbs down the product from a tablet to a Color e-reader with a few benefits, we aren't quite sure there was much wisdom in the decision.