I've always liked the Nook, Barnes & Noble's Android-based dark horse family of tablets, a reader that competes directly with the Amazon and Apple juggernauts. Not only are the devices cheap, but they've frequently been ahead of the curve design wise (though lately, they've had trouble matching pace with devices like the Nexus 7). The Nooks also featured the surprisingly large library of Barnes & Noble content, along with its own unique app store—but this last point wasn't always a good thing.
The Nook app store was slow to start, and in truth never really took off. It had a few wonderful, unique offerings (like the sadly departed StorySpark self-publishing app) but the marketplace stagnated with Android and iOS grabbing the lion's share of app development. That all changed when Barnes & Noble made the surprised decision to allow Google Play apps on the Nook.
A World of Apps
Google Play is an enormous marketplace, and it has matured a lot in just the last few years. It now boasts hundreds of thousands of apps, covering everything from games, to antivirus, to office apps. That's not to mention the oodles of books, movies, magazines, and music as well.
The addition of an entirely new app store isn't without its drawbacks, of course. Nook users can now be targeted by aggressive advertisers that have made a business out of harvesting personal information from free apps. That's not to mention the occasional malware scare. There's also a redundancy issue; if you download an app from the Nook store and then the same app from Google Play, the Google version will overwrite the Nook version.
But if the mobile device revolution has taught us anything it's that apps matter—probably more than anything else. Now hooked into two major content libraries, the Nook is in many ways more capable than ever.
Best of the Best
Nook users now have an abundance of choice, which is pleasant problem. That's why we've sat down, and combined our knowledge of the Google Play and Nook stores to present our 13 favorite apps for the Nook. We have experience with each and every one, and they've all been tested on a Nook HD to make sure they'll work.
Google Play hasn't solved everything for the Nook, and, in truth the future, of the devices is in doubt. But Nook users know that they have a solid device that can pull its weight, and now they have access to entirety (mostly) of Google Play. Even if these are the Nook's twilight years, that doesn't mean it's too late for them to shine.