If You Value "Read In Store", Then Don't Root (NOOKcolor)
 

I'm sure many are not aware of the following:

If you root you will lose the ability to read a book for an hour in B&N stores. If this is valuable to you, then you may not want to root. You can still connect to store wifi and gain internet access to do whatever you would normally. The Read-In-Store feature is not made available to rooted devices. There are no known workarounds to this issue at the moment.

Thanks so much for posting this!!! I was on the verge of rooting, but I have used the read in store option 3 times since I got my NC for Christmas and it's one of my favorite features. Guess I'll just have to wait for a workaround.

Yes, you will no longer be able to pickup the book, take it to the lounge and read it. :p

Funny, but I've read 8 or 9 full books using read-in-store over the last year. I would not feel right doing that with a physical book they plan to sell since the book might show wear over time. Nor would I risk sitting in the Cafe with an unpurchased book with no intent to buy it -- I might spill something on it or smudge it. No worries with the Nook.

Also, one of my local B&Ns has an Indian fast food place right next door that can reach the wifi. I can have lunch and read-in-store. No way to do that with an unpurchased book.

Thankfully, I have the best of both worlds: an unrooted eInk Nook for read-in-store and in-store-coupons, and a rooted NookColor. :thumbsup:

The last time in BN (and likely last time on my NC) I did feel a little bad about grabbing the actual book....after my 1hr time limit ran out.....but I was right in the middle of an interesting part...........I had to grab the book...I was sitting in an area where they had some nice relaxing chairs...the guy next to me was reading a book for over 2hrs.....

I'd have probably kept reading but the SO, called and was nagging me to get home......

Thank you.

Theory @ xda is that rooting changes the device ID such that more apps show up in the market, which means that it MAY be possible to swap build props and get store functionality back. I plan on looking into this eventually, going to try swapping a pristine copy of build props with the rooted/market changed one using something like root explorer, but ATM I'm still loitering around seeing how long it takes them to push the 1.01 update to my NC... I had the first one for c. 1d on w/WiFi quite a bit but it never go it, then my replacement I've been turning WiFi on when charging and on for a bit while using it as a reader, or at least until I get more worried about having enough batt runtime to shut down WiFi...

anyways the file in question should be build.props IIRC but don't recall offhand exactly where it resides... it's been a while since I've had to modify one but it seems to be the most likely candidate...

Is this what you're referring to:

/system/build.prop

That would be it... almost ready to just sideload the update instead of waiting around for it to be pushed... (already downloaded it, but I was curious to see how their automated system worked out... they really ought to have put in an app for users to force check the fw version and initiate an update dl...)

To me about the only advantage of rooting will be to gain access to a few extra market apps, since I intend the NC to be primarily a reading device(poorly lits conditions -- plan to primarily rely on the PRS-505 in summer/sunny conditions) with secondary tablet capabilities as it's complementing my Viewsonic gTablet w/TnT lite custom fw. (10" can be a bit unwieldly in some situations, or so I've already found to be the case, plus it's not very comfortable to use as a reading device...)

This is good information to sticky up top.

Honestly, I could see where this is valuable if the store you were in didn't have the book in stock, but I have no problem admitting that I'm one of those who go and pull the book of the shelf to sit and read it for two or three hours...

I think there are too many advantages and things gained by rooting your Nook Color to be scared away just because you loose the in-store reading feature.

Yes, but it should be a relatively easy process to automate, swap files, reboot... not even sure that this will fix it yet or not bork something else. I'm not even sure when I'd be able to go over to the B&N again to try it, or if anyone at xda has already done so... but still it'd be REALLY nice to have.

I am lucky, losing the ability to read in-store for an hour is not a very big loss compared to the gains from rooting my Nook Color.

My closest B & N store is an hour away (48 miles one way). I get up there maybe once every month or two. I use the "get a sample" much more than I use the in-store preview.

The number of valuable apps far outweighs the loss of 1 part of it. I like being able to have all of my books (Amazon and B&N) on one device :-)

I will keep an eye on this thread to find out if there is a way to get the in-store reading back at some point in the future...

Oh yeah, and that Angry Birds game? It is really a time vacuum! LOL!

Is this the only B&N functionality that you lose if you root? Do magazine and newspaper subscriptions still download properly? Can you still shop the store, download samples & purchase books fine? Thanks in advance!

Yes, yes, and yes. :)