NOOK Tablet hacks: Flash a custom ROM or boot Ubuntu to restore OS 1.4.0. NOOK Tablet hackers have added a few new tools to their arsenal this weekend.
Developer Cobroto has put together one of the first custom ROMs for the tablet, while developer AdamOutler has put together a rather impressive tool based on Ubuntu Linux which you can use to reformat the NOOK Tablet and roll back from OS 1.4.1 or later to NOOK Tablet OS 1.4.0. Adam Outler’s Bootable Ubuntu SD card for wiping the NOOK Tablet and installing 1.4.0 Now that hackers have figured out how to make the NOOK Tablet boot from an SD card, we’ve seen some pretty nifty tools. You can root the tablet with an SD card or install ClockworkMod Recovery (although there’s an even easier way to install CWM without a bootable SD card at all).
Launchers For Nook Tablet [Archive] Root a NOOK Tablet with just an SD card. Barnes & Noble has been playing a bit of cat and mouse game with NOOK Tablet hackers.
When the company released the 7 inch Android tablet in November, it didn’t take long for hackers to figure out how to sideload apps, root the tablet, and even install the Android Market. Then Barnes & Noble pushed out a software update which made doing all of those things much more complicated. But now that hackers have figured out a way around the NOOK Tablet’s secure bootloader, it’s possible to load software on the tablet simply by placing it on a properly formatted microSD card and rebooting the tablet with the microSD card installed. Portal:NookTablet. Android Market website now recognizes HP TouchPad, NOOK Tablet, Kindle Fire. Google has rolled out a minor update to the Android Market website so that it now recognizes devices that didn’t originally ship with the Android Market.
In other words, if you install the Android Market on an officially unsupported device such as the HP TouchPad, Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet, or Amazon Kindle Fire, you can now see your device from the Amazon Market website. What that means is that you can visit the website in any web browser, find an app you want to download, and send it to your mobile device automatically. Up until now this feature was only available for devices that came with the Android Market, including most Android smartphones and many top tier tablets. How to add sideloaded apps to your NOOK Tablet home screen, app library. There are about a thousand apps available for the NOOK Tablet in the official Barnes & Noble Shop.
But it’s easy to add thousands of additional apps by downloading them off the internet or installing a third party app store on the tablet. Update: Sideloading Android apps on a NOOK Tablet requires a device running OS version 1.4.0 or earlier. Unfortunately when you “sideload” apps this way, they won’t show up in the NOOK Tablet app library or on the home screen. How to unroot a Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet. So you’ve gone ahead and rooted your NOOK Tablet, installed the Android Market, and made some other changes.
But after a little thought, you’ve decided you’d like to unroot the tablet so you can start from scratch, return it, or give it as a gift this holiday season. Fortunately there’s an app for that. Or rather, a script that you can run from a Windows or Linux computer. If you followed our suggestions for rooting your tablet and used Indirects NookAndZenergy tools, you can now run an uninstaller script from the same developer.
Just download and unzip the Nomoarzergys.zip file from the xda-developers forum. Rooted NOOK Tablet tweaks: adding a home button, settings shortcuts. So you’ve rooted your Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet and installed the Android Market so you can download some extra apps.
But those apps don’t show up in the Barnes & Noble app library, so you have to install a new app launcher… and then you have to use the search option to look up the app launcher every time you want to get to it, right? Not necessarily. It turns out there’s a couple of ways to use a third party app launcher such as GO Launcher Ex as your default app launcher on the NOOK Tablet. The easiest is to simply shut down your NOOK Tablet and then press the power button to start it up again. When you unlock the screen, a menu will pop up asking if you want to use Home or GO Launcher EX. How to sideload apps on the NOOK Tablet (Amazon Appstore, GO Launcher EX) The Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet ships with a couple of great apps pre-loaded including Pandora, Netflix, a decent email app, and an excellent eBook reader.
There’s also an app section of the B&N Shop where you can browse for additional apps for the tablet — but the selection is pretty limited. Fortunately it’s pretty easy to install third party apps on the NOOK Tablet. You don’t even need to root the tablet or install any custom firmware to do it. You might need a microSD card though. Update 11/20/2011: If you want to… you can also now root the tablet and install the Android Market too.