Touch buying the new Nook Touch, very excited and also a few questions

[yov9]

Hey there!
After waiting for eternity for the perfect eReader, I decided to stop waiting and buy the best eReader available right now.
Reading quite a lot in this forum, i came to think the Nook Simple Touch is the one for me, and the glowlight feature made me want it even more.

since I don't live in the US, getting it is a bit of a hassle and I will probably have to use Calibre and sideload the books i'll read, but I believe that overall the pros are much greater than the cons, and the nook as it is will be more than enough to keep me happy.

HOWEVER -
reading the devs forums over here, nookdevs and XDA made me aware of the great possibilities available for a rooted device.

I made a list of features that would make the nook even more awesome for me (ordered by desirability):

1. Transfer content over wifi with dropbox or similar services.
2. Read, zoom and scroll PDFs in a reasonable way for light article reading
3. Handle different formats, especially CHM, Word, TXT for studying
4. Support RTL languages and fonts on PDF and ePub.
5. Better library management method than shelves.
6. Better homescreen than stock.
7. Have a ReadItLater\”send to kindle” kind of option on PC browser.
8. Override the 250Mb sideloaded content restriction.

So, my questions are:
1. is this wishlist even possible? if yes, what do you think are the best methods to use?
2. what is the best rooting method right now? by best i mean most robust - since i won't have the option to enter a B&N store if something goes wrong, I prefer safety over "one-click" simplicity.
4. what are the chances it will work on the new glowlight iteration?
3. I just read that the "readItLater" now Pocket app stopped working on rooted nooks, due to halted android 2.1 support. do you think one should expect losing functionality on the nook as time goes by?

I'm super excited about this, will be glad to read your comments thoughts and advice.

thanks

yov9

[Jaede]

Originally Posted by yov9

Hey there!
After waiting for eternity for the perfect eReader, I decided to stop waiting and buy the best eReader available right now.
Reading quite a lot in this forum, i came to think the Nook Simple Touch is the one for me, and the glowlight feature made me want it even more.

since I don't live in the US, getting it is a bit of a hassle and I will probably have to use Calibre and sideload the books i'll read, but I believe that overall the pros are much greater than the cons, and the nook as it is will be more than enough to keep me happy.

HOWEVER -
reading the devs forums over here, nookdevs and XDA made me aware of the great possibilities available for a rooted device.

I made a list of features that would make the nook even more awesome for me (ordered by desirability):

1. Transfer content over wifi with dropbox or similar services.
2. Read, zoom and scroll PDFs in a reasonable way for light article reading
3. Handle different formats, especially CHM, Word, TXT for studying
4. Support RTL languages and fonts on PDF and ePub.
5. Better library management method than shelves.
6. Better homescreen than stock.
7. Have a ReadItLater\”send to kindle” kind of option on PC browser.
8. Override the 250Mb sideloaded content restriction.

So, my questions are:
1. is this wishlist even possible? if yes, what do you think are the best methods to use?
2. what is the best rooting method right now? by best i mean most robust - since i won't have the option to enter a B&N store if something goes wrong, I prefer safety over "one-click" simplicity.
4. what are the chances it will work on the new glowlight iteration?
3. I just read that the "readItLater" now Pocket app stopped working on rooted nooks, due to halted android 2.1 support. do you think one should expect losing functionality on the nook as time goes by?

I'm super excited about this, will be glad to read your comments thoughts and advice.

thanks

yov9

I honestly don't know about Dropbox as I've never used it. Nor about how to bybass the memory restriction on the STR's internal memory. But with most of your wishlist you can just root the Nook, and you'll get a few more features than if you just stuck with stock.

32gb sd cards are pretty cheap now, and you can sideload from Calibre to the STR easily. I rooted mine, and while a root will void your warranty I've got to say being able to buy from Amazon, view on kindle app, and read it all on my nook makes it worth it. Can't help it-Amazon rocks for ebooks, but I hate their Kindle. It is evil!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The only tradeoff is my sneaking suspicion that the rooting of the STR hurts the battery life. Some android market apps like to run in the background.

So in summary if your buying a nook STR the question stands-To root or not to root? Also the glowlight feature I think is great. I'm a sucker for all things B & N and will most likely buy a new reader just to have a glowing E-ink screen.

For the best method for rooting go the Ereader.com. That's where I learned to do mine.

[afv011]

I personally think there is little reason to root an eInk reader because they are not very good at much more than reading books. Maybe some RSS feeds, or some static games like sudoku, but little more. I use mine exclusively for reading.

To answer one of your questions, you can't alter the partitions to give more space to the sideloaded books section, that would require a formatting of the eMMC and repartitioning, plus re-installation of the software. But as the previous poster said, with SD card costing so little (I saw Amazon selling 16GB for $22 yesterday), it's not a problem.

If you want to root, check the auto-nooter, it's the simplest and safest way to do it.

[bgalbrecht]

My suspicion is the new Glowlite Nook will not be something you can root when it is first released. It's probably got new drivers for the light and other changes which will require changes to the root package.

[yov9]

Jaede - The reason i want the dropbox style option is that as far as i know, sideloaded books can only be synced by cable connection, which sounda a bit of a hassle comparing to wifi sync.
So the kindle app on the nook sounds great, and may also solve the sync problem - if I get it straight, it will allow me to buy books from amazon and have them synced and ready for reading on the nook?

afv011 - I suspected re-partitioning is too much work compared to buying an SD card, so this is probably what i'll do (also need it for possible rooting)

bgalbrecht - that makes sense. in this case, spending time with the stock Nook will help me decide if rooting is really necessary for me.

Thank you for your comments!

anyone here have experience with the rest of the questions\wishlist?

[rdfry]

The advantage of rooting it is,having access to the hidden partition from your computer.

[jasoraso]

I have dropbox working on my rooted Nook touch.

On my phone, I have Aldiko reader installed, and when I click on an .epub in dropbox (my Calibre library is stored there), I get an option to "Import to Aldiko" which adds the file to my Aldiko library.

For some reason, however, Aldiko isn't working on my Nook touch, so the import feature isn't working properly. However, I can choose the "export" option when I long press on on an .epub file, and then save it to the Sdcard folder where the Nook Reader app is able to find the books, so that works fine.

I haven't needed to do much with pdf files, so I can't answer your questions there.

[jasoraso]

Also, the last two Nook Touches that I rooted, I had better success with the process that uses CWR on an SDCARD, rather than the process that roots automatically from the SDCARD. The automatic process needed me to reboot halfway through - it seemed to lock up. It did eventually root, but it seemed like I needed to do it 2x. The CWR (clockwork recovery) method where I flashed the "rooting" zip file seemed to work w/o a hitch.

[bobcdy]

I recently purchased a Nook Simple Touch, and have been having a dickens of a time rooting it. I updated the ereader with software v. 1.1.2, and using touchnooter 2.1.31 tried rooting it. It seemed to be ok, but apparently the rooting only partly succeeded because the home screen is still the B&N touch screen, and the only thing I can do is shop, read, etc. so I must reboot to get back to the android. Even then, it really doesn't seem correctly set up because various menus aren't visible as described on the internet. Has anyone had similar problems, and can suggest what to do?

[yov9]

jasoraso - glad to hear dropbox is working, and exporting to the sd card is not so bad.
as i continue reading i think that B&N really missed out with the (in)ability to send articles to the nook, while amazon makes it really easy with the "send to kindle" feature.

about the clockwork rooting method - i encountered the term hear and there, but i don't really understand what it means (something with backup?) and what is the difference between the two rooting methods you described. could you elaborate on the subject? a link will also be helpful.

rdfry - i'm not sure what is the "hidden partition". from the comments I understand the SD card really makes the partitioning less needed for storage purposes.

i guess we will soon find out about the rootability of the glowlight version
thanks!

[jasoraso]

The cwr method is based of of Clockwork Recovery, which is a program/operating system that allows you to make backups of the Nook, and also install .zip files which copy/install files from the sd card to the main memory of the Nook. This copying is done when the Nook isn't using the system files because it is in recovery mode, so the sytem files can be modified (this is when the rooting happens).

Here is the method I used:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1346748

I would suggest using the beta5 method, which will do a backup for you.

[jasoraso]

Originally Posted by bobcdy

I recently purchased a Nook Simple Touch, and have been having a dickens of a time rooting it. I updated the ereader with software v. 1.1.2, and using touchnooter 2.1.31 tried rooting it. It seemed to be ok, but apparently the rooting only partly succeeded because the home screen is still the B&N touch screen, and the only thing I can do is shop, read, etc. so I must reboot to get back to the android. Even then, it really doesn't seem correctly set up because various menus aren't visible as described on the internet. Has anyone had similar problems, and can suggest what to do?

I'm guessing the "rooting" was accomplished, but the all of the programs weren't necessarily set to the correct settings. Do you have button saviour running - look for a little arrow on the right side of the screen - you should be able to tap on the arrow, and the buttons will pop up, then you can tap the home button and it should allow you to select the ADW home instead of the default (Nook) home.

If you can get into ADW, check and see in the app drawer if you have Nook Color Tools. IF you do then you should be able to tweak/salvage everything that you need to.

If not, there are ways to install it, but it might be easier to walk through the steps to reset the Nook to original settings, and then re-root (and I would suggest you try the manual nooter process and see if that works better for you).

[jasoraso]

I guess I should note that for more in-depth discussion on rooting, it would be more appropriate to start in thread in the developer subforum.

[yov9]

thanks, this is really helpful.
waiting to may 7th to order.. can't wait

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by yov9

thanks, this is really helpful.
waiting to may 7th to order.. can't wait

I think you'll greatly enjoy it. I've discovered that my nook is good for one thing: reading epub books. That's it. Nothing else.

But it is very, very good at that one thing.

Side loading is a minor pain and my only wish that's also on your list is that it could download wirelessly with my server. I just can't see rooting it for that single purpose, though I did once seriously consider it.