Barnes and Noble’s NOOK app for Android has been optimised for 7-inch and larger tablets to take advantage of the added real estate and high definition screens. The update also adds access to over 140 NOOK Newsstand titles, the largest selection of digital periodicals available to Android users.
The update should make Android tablets more than competitive with the iPad in the battle for digital magazines and newspapers.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Barnes & Noble Updates NOOK™ for Android™ App, Gives Tablet Users Access to Largest Digital Periodical Offering on Android
More than 140 NOOK Newsstand™ Titles Including Interactive Magazines
with Exclusive ArticleView™ Now Available to Android Tablet Customers
Optimized Reading Experience for Most 7-Inch and Larger Tablets
Including Honeycomb
Free App Now Available in Android Market, V CAST Apps,
Samsung Apps, GetJar, and AppsLib
New York, New York – May 12, 2011 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced an updated version of its popular, free NOOK for Android eReading application that brings the most comprehensive selection of digital periodicals to customers with Android™ tablets including more than 140 top magazine and newspaper brands from ESPN The Magazine and The Economist to Food & Wine and Us Weekly. To take advantage of large and extra large, high-resolution Android tablet screens, NOOK for Android now offers customers an optimised library grid view and reading experience with enhanced book margins and line spacing, as well as an improved shopping experience and more. The new app features are available for popular 7-inch and larger tablets using Android OS 2.1 and higher (Honeycomb).
Today’s announcement marks the largest digital newsstand offering for Android tablet customers to date, with more than 140 of the best daily, weekly and monthly periodicals, all optimised for high-resolution displays in rich colour. Barnes & Noble’s interactive NOOK Magazine™ experience, previously available only to NOOK Color™ Reader’s Tablet™ customers, is now available to the Android tablet community, featuring more than 120 popular titles such as Esquire, Maxim, Men’s Health, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Popular Science, PC Magazine, Elle, O, The Oprah Magazine, Travel + Leisure and many more. NOOK for Android customers with large tablets can also enjoy favourite NOOK Newspapers™ including USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and The Chicago Tribune. All can be enjoyed with a 14-day free trial, via subscription or purchased in single issue form.
With NOOK for Android on larger tablets, magazine reading is easy and engaging with full-color pages in landscape and portrait mode, and Barnes & Noble’s exclusive ArticleView technology (formerly available only on NOOK colour) which features only the article’s text, customised to the reader’s favourite style, on a central panel on the display. NOOK Magazines also feature a universal, easy-to-use reading experience with a slider to jump to the desired page, pinch and zoom to enlarge images and more.
“With our free, updated NOOK for Android application, we’re delivering customers with Android tablets a great optimised reading experience and access to the largest ever collection of interactive magazines, as well as top newspapers, all optimised for high-resolution displays,” said Jamie Iannone, President of Digital Products at Barnes & Noble. “Using their Android tablets, customers can enjoy our collection of more than two million digital books, as well as their morning paper and latest magazines, delivered right to their device through their NOOK for Android app, for an amazing periodical experience which includes our innovative ArticleView feature.”
NOOK Newsstand and the optimised book reading experience on NOOK for Android will be available for customers using 7-inch and larger Android OS 2.1 and higher (Honeycomb) tablets with 800 x 480 (160 DPI or less) or higher screen resolution, and include Samsung Galaxy Tab™, Motorola XOOM™, LG G-Slate™ and ARCHOS internet tablets, among others. NOOK for Android customers on smartphones will also enjoy minor performance enhancements.
NOOK for Android gives customers with Android smartphones and tablets access to Barnes & Noble’s expansive NOOK Bookstore™, one of the world’s largest digital content catalogs, with the most NOOK Books™ priced at $US9.99 or less. As part of Barnes & Noble’s promise to “Read What You Love, Anywhere You Like™,” customers can enjoy NOOK Books from their Barnes & Noble digital library on their NOOK colour, NOOK eReader devices and mobile and computing devices using free NOOK eReading software or apps.
Expanded App Availability
To make it easy for Android smartphone and tablet customers to find and download the free NOOK for Android app, Barnes & Noble has expanded availability for the free app to include Android Market, V CAST Apps from Verizon Wireless, Samsung Apps, GetJar, and AppsLib, with more to come. NOOK for Android will also be pre-loaded or made available in future firmware upgrades for some of the current leading and highly anticipated Android tablets coming to market. Customers can learn more about NOOK for Android v2.6.1 at www.bn.com/nookforandroid.
About NOOK™ from Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble’s NOOK brand of eReading products makes it easy to read what you love, anywhere you like with a fun, easy-to-use and immersive digital reading experience. With NOOK, customers gain access to Barnes & Noble’s expansive NOOK Bookstore™ of more than two million digital titles, and the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices. NOOK products are the most full-featured, dedicated eReading devices on the market. The award-winning NOOK colour Reader’s Tablet, the best-value on the tablet market ($249), features a stunning 7-inch VividView™ colour Touchscreen to read all of the content you love, shop popular apps, connect via email, browse the Web and more. For book lovers, NOOK 3G ($199) and NOOK Wi-Fi® ($149) offer a paper-like reading experience with a colour touch screen for navigation. In Barnes & Noble stores, NOOK owners can access free Wi-Fi connectivity, enjoy the Read In Store™ feature to read NOOK Books™ for free, and the More In Store™ program, which offers free, exclusive content and special promotions. Barnes & Noble was the first company to offer digital lending for a wide selection of books through its LendMe™ technology, available through NOOK eReading products. Find NOOK devices in Barnes & Noble stores and online at www.BN.com, as well as at Best Buy, Walmart, Staples and Books-A-Million.
In addition to NOOK devices, Barnes & Noble makes it easy for customers to enjoy any book, anytime, anywhere with its free line of NOOK software, available at www.bn.com/nookapps. Customers can use Barnes & Noble’s free eReading software to access and read books from their personal Barnes & Noble digital library on devices including iPad™, iPhone®, iPod touch®, Android™, BlackBerry® and other smartphones, PC and Mac®. Lifetime Library™ helps ensure that Barnes & Noble customers will always be able to access their digital libraries on NOOK products and software-enabled devices and BN.com. Barnes & Noble also offers NOOK Study™ (www.nookstudy.com), an innovative study platform and software solution for higher education, NOOK Kids™ (www.nookkids.com), a collection of digital picture and chapter books for children, and NOOK Books en español™ (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooksenespanol), the first-ever Spanish language digital bookstore in the United States.
For more information on NOOK devices and eReading software, updates, new NOOK Book releases, Free Friday™ NOOK Books and more, follow us on www.twitter.com/ebooksbn and www.facebook.com/nookbn.
ABOUT BARNES & NOBLE, INC.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS), the world’s largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 705 bookstores in 50 states. Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, also operates 636 college bookstores serving nearly 4 million students and faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites, which also features more than two million titles in its NOOK Bookstore™ (www.bn.com/ebooks). Through Barnes & Noble’s NOOK™ eReading product offering, customers can buy and read eBooks on the widest range of platforms, including NOOK eBook Readers, devices from partner companies, and hundreds of the most popular mobile and computing devices using free NOOK software.
General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company’s corporate website: www.barnesandnobleinc.com.
NOOK™, NOOK Color™, Reader’s Tablet™, NOOK Books™, NOOK Bookstore™, NOOK Newsstand™, LendMe™, ArticleView™, Read In Store™, More In Store™, Free Friday™, Lifetime Library™ and Read What You Love. Anywhere You Like™ are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc. Other trademarks referenced in this release are the property of their respective owners.