Barnes & Noble is removing the ability to purchase books, audiobooks, and other content via the Nook app for Android on April 4 to avoid having to support Google’s payment system.
The company says that purchases will also be disabled in the Nook HD 10” Designed with Lenovo tablet, which runs Android, but other Nook e-readers won’t be affected by this change.
Barnes & Noble has a workaround for people looking to purchase Nook content on Android:
Digital content purchases can be made on BN.com using the account registered to your NOOK account, which will then sync to your Library. Additionally, you can add books to your Wishlist from the app, which will sync with your Wishlist on BN.com so you can remember and purchase your favorites easily.
This convoluted process will be familiar to anyone who’s tried to buy digital content on an iOS device; Google is effectively bringing one of the worst aspects of Apple’s ecosystem to Android.
But there is another workaround. Barnes & Noble says that purchases will only be disabled in Nook Software Version 6.1—previous versions of the software will be unaffected.
“If your app has not updated,” it says, “you will be able to continue purchasing through the app. However, once you install the update, you will not be able to roll back to the previous version.”
Continuing to use an old version of the Nook software wouldn’t be ideal, since it means people will have to deal with existing bugs and vulnerabilities, but at least they’ll still be able to buy stuff.
