An Overview of the Nook Audiobooks App for Android

man using smartphone

The Barnes and Noble Nook Audiobooks app has been widely seen as one of, if not the best e-book listening in the market. Even with the large clout that Amazon has, it was not able to really beat this competitor when it comes to its audiobooks and e-readers.

And now, you can bring that Nook experience across all your Android devices with the Nook listening app for Android. If you are already a Nook user, this app is the perfect companion to your Nook as it lets you access your account from any Android device. If you are new to Nook, this book reading app for Android is still great as it gives you access to Barnes and Noble’s database of over 4 million titles.

Setting it up

The Nook audiobook app is available on Google’s PlayStore. After downloading and installing the app to your android phone or tablet, it is just a matter of logging in to your account using your Nook account. If you are new to Nook and do not have a new Nook account yet, you can start by tapping the ‘Get Started’ icon to create a Barnes and Noble or BN.com account.

Making an account is similar to how other sites set up new users to their service. You will be asked for a valid email address, to be entered twice, and a password, again to be entered twice for confirmation. You will also be asked to provide an answer to a secret question for added security.

Once the account is set up, you can login with the account and access to Barnes and Nobles rich database of electronic books and other publishing like magazines and comics/graphic novels.

Features

Aside from access to a giant database of content, what separates the Nook app for Android from other reading apps are its great features. First off, Nook considered that there can be multiple users of the same device. That is why they allowed the app to handle multiple profiles. This way, each user can use the same device differently as each profile can be customized according to the user’s specifications and references.

• As a listening app, voice clarity is a main priority for the app. That is why Nook has included some nifty customizations that users can take advantage of to improve their listening experience.
• The app is also pretty flexible. Options and settings are not buried, so that they are not difficult to find. This is especially helpful when you are jumping from one book to another. You can also write notes and highlight some sections for future reference. In fact, you can highlight a section while checking notes on a separate part of the app.
• Bookmarking a certain page is also a cinch. Just simply press the upper right hand corner of the page you are reading to have it ear-marked. This automatically bookmarks the page. If you want to remove the bookmark, you can simply press the same area to clear the ear-mark.
• You can also organize your own library. Want to arrange them by genre, alphabetically, or by author? Whichever your preference is, you can customize your own library to reflect it.
• While you cannot import most of your audiobooks directly from your nook to your Android device, you can sync your progress across all your Android devices. This means that the app can sync your last page, bookmarks, and notes to your Android phone or tablet, which allows you to switch devices anytime.

The listening app that almost has it all

No wonder why it is listed as one of the best listening apps for Android by Tom’s Guide. It has everything you need to make your audio book listening experience as convenient as possible. The only downside is that a lot of the books are DRM protected so they cannot be accessed on other platforms, which is pretty understandable as Barnes and Noble is also trying to protect itself and the Books authors from piracy. It is also the reason why Amazon and Kobo does the same thing. What can’t be ignored, however, is the amount of thought given to the development of the app. With the amount of features and customizations available to the user, you would think that the reading app would be complicated to use. But it is not, while the settings and options are front and center, it does not take away from the reading experience. It is a featured pack while maintaining simplicity at the same time.