Porting AOSP Ice Cream Sandwich to the Nook Tablet

[indirect]

Alright everyone, I'm making this thread to try and show the community that while we are trying, B&N are seriously hindering the development on the nook tablet. Specifically in terms of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Problems so far:

No access to custom kernels

No unlocked x-loader (too many security checks)

No more side loading of apps (This can cause a loss to the company as far as sales go.)

No root (understandable security risk but if we had an unlocked x-loader, literally ALL of these problems would vanish. There would be custom kernels, root, and even sideloading while still being able to support barnes and noble as a company.) As it stands right now, because of all these brick walls, I am thinking of no longer recommending the device to anyone and I am trying my hardest to make this device as widespread as possible by working on developing for it. However, so long as they keep killing developers off this device by blocking everything, they WILL lose out to the kindle fire and I would hate to see this happen.

From
Indirect - Nook Tablet Developer

[AdamOutler]

Thank you very much for trying! 

It would appear Barnes and Noble has put too much faith in their brand name which is still in progress of establishment.  Without the ability to customize this tablet, it's worthless and I cannot recommend it to any of my friends as the Kindle Fire seems like a much better deal for not only the price, but the wow factor as well.

Please keep us updated on your progress!

[caitpoo]

My nook tablet sucks without sideloading.

My nook tablet sucks without root.

My nook tablet sucks without unlocked bootloader.

B&N needs to support developers!

[AnnieVan]

Coming from Indirect, Nook owners should be very concerned about this. I am by no means very technical, but the work done by XDA developers allowed even me to be able to have functionality that I could utilize. I think it is this functionality that most of us have come to expect from today's technology. And those expectations from consumers are only going to increase in the future.

[AnnieVan]

Didn't Amazon lock down the Fire about the same time B&N did this to us?

[Nom-de-Nook]

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AnnieVan wrote:
Didn't Amazon lock down the Fire about the same time B&N did this to us?

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Not in the same way as apparently sideloading still works.

Under the "be careful what you wish for" category, it appears BN is getting what it thinks it want, a device locked down enough that only diehards will bother trying to mod.  I hope they are right in thinking that they can still sell lots of these things.  I have a feeling that a large portion of 1 million shipped NT's are about to be warehoused instead of sold and there will be CPO NT's available sooner after release than there were for any other nook.

[roustabout]

I have a question:  why would ICS be a preferred OS for the NT?  

If ICS adopts the remarkably bad android MTP interface to connect our computers to our tablets, I would argue that it's a huge step backwards.  DeanG's observations on MTP illustrate why I'm asking the question.  Most nook owners do copy data to and from their devices over the USB cable fairly regularly;  that new interface makes that a truly sucky option.  

Booting from SD would potentially be valuable to me, if it gave me access to a noogie-like disk that let me boot and use a linux host to edit the partition table on the device, but in terms of what I need a nook device to do, honeycomb (for example) makes a device much more of a pain in the hinders to use.   

So, given a choice between Honeycomb and Froyo on a device that has as one of its core design goals being a solid reader?  

Honestly, I'll take Froyo unless there's been a real leap forward in the interface.  One of the key tools I use to manage content is viable on Froyo and Gingerbread but worth a whole lot less in Honeycomb:  Calibre.  

Unless ICS addresses the MTP interface head-on (I have not seen any reviews of ICS that have discussed this at all) I'm not sure what the excitement is about.   

[indirect]

It's as simple as adding a kernel module for USB Mass Storage. Only phones with internal storage use MTP. ICS itself supports USB Mass Storage...

[roustabout]

"It's as simple as adding a kernel module for USB Mass Storage. Only phones with internal storage use MTP. ICS itself supports USB Mass Storage..."

Very interesting.  I'll look for that for the Transformer, and I'm sure Dean will for the Acer he carries.  By default, the TF only supports MTP and it's annoying as sin.   

[AdamOutler]

Android 4.0 has usb mass storage. 

The issue you speak of is, by default ICS saves pictures to the cloud and not to the sdcard.  This is what people are complaining about.  It's not an issue since your pictures are either going online or will get lost/destroyed in a hardware failue within 2-10 years anyways if they're not posted online.  They're not public, they're saved to your own personal cloud until you make them public.

[moose_tracker]

I thought xda developers and the brave-soles that follow them could roll back to an older version, then Root?..

It was just us people who were content to be 90- 95% locked down to B&N content, but wanted to have 5% sideloading that were really affected.. The ones that wanted a little taste of freedom, without having to brick the device and foresaw much more complex directions to Root if we even chose to.

Well good luck to xda to get the thing solved..

Currently there are a few 7' open source tablets out there, with pluses and minus.. But, it seems that that is a promising market for some buisness with the capital to improve on an open source reader in the next few years.

[roustabout]

Adam attempts a mind read:  "The issue you speak of is, by default ICS saves pictures to the cloud and not to the sdcard.  "

That is not the issue I'm referring to.  I couldn't care less about where pictures are saved.  

Please read the thread I linked to.  

Dean and I have both seen that Honeycomb's garbage MTP implementation does not properly address naming collisions or file deletions.

Better yet, it has a number of completely silent failure modes.  

What nook owners are looking to do is use Calibre to poll storage devices and retrieve indexes of specific folders.  This lets us manage our libraries of sideloaded material effectively.  

Honeycomb seems to blow that out, as there is no mass storage mode in default honeycomb installations.  

The issue I speak of is, is that still true in ICS?   

[indirect]

No, it's only on the Galaxy Nexus. We have SDCard slots meaning it would need to use USB mass storage. Andy rubin already talked about it in an interview or another individual whos name was weird.

[roustabout]

Actually, indirect, I would want to be able to use both the internal memory and the sd card as mass storage.  

This is available to me now in Froyo and Gingerbread;  moving to an OS where I lose that flexibility is a step back in the usefulness of the device.  (As is the current partitioning layout.)

if I want to be stuck with only using the SD card, as mass storage, I can pop the card out and

write files to it, then pop it back in - that's the only way I know of to use calibre with the transformer, but I will start looking at the mass storage option this evening.   

[indirect]

USB mass storage is used for both internal and external when present.... >.>'

[indirect]

also with the use of an unlocked x-loader, we can build Gingerbread for it too. It's no different. We can just have normal android on it. ICS is just what we're working on. Gingerbread would take a week at most to have a stable build.

[roustabout]

indirect writes:  "with the use of an unlocked x-loader, we can build Gingerbread for it too. It's no different. We can just have normal android on it. ICS is just what we're working on. Gingerbread would take a week at most to have a stable build."

Well, the one person I saw asking about gingerbread for the TF was told no one was doing a GB build for the device, and that no one ever would be interested.  I haven't seen the TF as a CM7 supported platform, either.  And the TF is very well-supported and modded device. 

Also, when we're talking about USB mass storage, are we talking past one another?  I realize that I can connect a thumb drive to the TF or other Honeycomb device and have that thumb drive mounted. 

That's not what I'm referring to here.

I'm talking about connecting a nook tablet to my computer and having the storage, or at least the fat32 storage, mounted as a removable disk, so I can write directly to it.  Calibre requires that, or access to a writeable folder, in order to work to manage a library. Another option, one Dean's thought of, would be to let the tablet share its EXT3 filesystems via Samba, but the current Samba for Android only supports fat32. 

As of now, I've only seen the TF show up as an MTP device when it is cabled to my workstation, and then only in windows - I'm not running vanilla Ubuntu and when I've tried getting MTP set up in the distro I use, it hasn't worked.  For a lot of what I do, I don't care that much - I can shell in and copy stuff over if I need to, but it really makes the TF a less useful book reading platform.  (An excellent RSS platform, though, via Newsrob.) 

The alternative is to run Calibre as a server and connect to it from the device via a web browser;  that's not nearly as nice for working with even a moderately sized library. 

But this loops me back to my original thought:  on XDA, I get that the ICS port is something people really want.  But over here, what's the benefit of ICS to this audience?

[AdamOutler]

Enabling the Nook Tablet to be used as a Tablet. The device is hindering development of apps.  The Barnes and Noble App Store is crappy because it's new and they're not doing themselves any favors by locking development out of the device.

We developers use our hardware differently.  We put alot of persistance and patience into working with them so that users of our patches and firmware updates can reep the benefeits.  Here's  perfect example.  Supercurio's voodoo sound is a series of improvements for a variety of different hardware.  Using a custom built kernel with Voodoo sound allows for better clarity as well as granular control over the listening experience for those who enjoy classical music while we read books, or maybe a bit less treble while listening to them  http://project-voodoo.org/

The ability to customize your security is another great reason. If you've got pictures or information on your tablet which others should not see, a standardized password system is not right. The act of unlocking your device leaves fingerprints on the areas of your screen which were used.   For this device, a button sequence of volume+ and volume- would be a better option.

How about enhanced video displays?  The Nook tablet's display is great and all, but what if I told you that there were options to enhance crispness and/or sharpen images...

What about using all four in the OMAP4430?   Yeah.. there's 4 cores, not 2.   There's 2 application class processors and 2 mobile class processors.  While we are for sure using the CORTEX A9 dual cores, what's going on with the CORTEX M3 processors?   We can put those to use as audio or video co-processors, performing repetative tasks and enhancing the user experience.

Now, as far as standard app development goes on the emulator...  It's impossible!  The N button does not work, the apps are not correct, and it's got a "phone" button on the UI. Check out these screen shots which show the "experience"

How can you possibly call Intents or simulate the Nook experience with that before you publish an app?

They removed side-loading, so there's no way to actually develop an app while demonstrating it's experience. 

And it's not going to get any better without some help from the Open Source community.  We're here to help the sad state of the nook. Barnes and Noble, you're doing it wrong and you need help.  Admit it and open the bootloaders so we can get to work.

[indirect]

Couldn't have said it better myself Adam. Without the development community working hand in hand with B&N, this device is sadly doomed to fail. We would even be able to use the inactive bluetooth when we can get either CM7 or CM9 on it. Also, dude that seems to think TF and Nook tablet are the same: This device runs a very bastardized version of gingerbread, it's literally as simple as tweaking cm7 ever so slightly and you have a way to enjoy it without all the weird apps on it and still being able to use the Nook app from Android market.

edit: Also, we would be able to get rid of that stupid status bar at the bottom or make it into a honeycomb / ICS statusbar. It looks moronic, let us fix it B&N!

[Mark_OB1 Bibliophile]

> I thought xda developers and the brave-soles that follow them... <

I knew something was afoot.    Quick, Watson, before they get away...

- Mark