Ok, so I have no idea how the Kindle works, it may have the same issues I am going to touch on here. I have a Nook. i like my Nook. I like the interface with the little touch screen instead of the doofy keyboard. I feel like Amazon, as much as I buy from them, is sort of the Wal-mart of the internet and may have dodgy overall quality. I like supporting Barnes and Noble as a book seller. i like that the Nook feels more open since I buy books from Smashwords and Kobo and other stores.
I like my Nook.
I HATE the Nook Ecosystem. It seems like something B&N could very very easily improve which would give them a strong edge in the market. The main thing we need is easy syncing between devices.
I only own one Nook but I do have the B&N Nook software on my PC. For reasons I can’t understand no matter how hard I try, I cannot create virtual shelves in the desktop software the way I can on the Nook itself. I open Nook for PC and all I get is a massive grid of all of my books with tiny useless thumbnails. Hovering over a book for a few seconds makes this ugly popup appear.
Seriously, get some UI people on this software because IT SUCKS.
My biggest complaint is the shelves, and doing a simple search on the subject shows I am nowhere near the only one with this problem. At the very least, a lot of people us shelves for “Currently Reading” and ‘”Finished”. I tend to get more granular but frankly, there isn’t any reason not to do user defined shelves.
Even better, these shelves should sync. There is NO EXCUSE for this not being implemented this far into the life cycle of this device. It is an extremely simple thing to do. Sync one tiny file to and from the deceive/program as it loads up, Easy. Want to keep it simple, resolve any difference conflict with whichever is newer. Yeah, once in a while someone may get screwed but whatever, it’s better than NOTHING.
The main reason this would be useful is that sorting on the Nook is an atrocious chore. Not so much due to the interface but simply that the nature of the eInk makes doing anything on the device slow. It’s great for reading which is a slow process. When you’re trying to move 100 books around into sorted shelves, well, it sucks.
My only other real complaint, which is much much lower on the list, acknowledge that other places sell eBooks and let me lump them all together. Preferably with the same synced shelves. I realize you can’t sync my Kobo books but flipping between my B&N library and My Documents is a needless chore.
Barnes and Noble, I get why you do this, you want people to buy only from your store. Great. I kind of prefer to buy from you anyway for the fact that it’s convenient, though honestly, I also prefer NOT to because you still have DRM on everything and you still don’t allow your coupons to be used on eBooks. Even if you threw your customers a bone once a month for 20% off I can pretty much guarantee my book purchases would increase 100% or more.
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