Nook Kills its eReader Apps for PCs and Mac

 

Ray Hendon

In what may be a portent for the future of eReading on PCs, Macs and laptops, Barnes and Noble has discontinued support for its dedicated eReader apps for PCs and Macs.  The good news is that the apps for Android, iPhone, iPad, Web and Windows 8 are still available and supported.

This move by Barnes and Noble is probably dictated by the dismal state of financial uncertainty facing them now.  B&N has not prospered under competition from Amazon—few can.  And the only certainty in its future is of the most dismal sort.  Its share of eBook sales is declining, as are the sales of its Nook eReaders. 

Amazon’s Kindle dominates the field, and B&N’s slide down that slippery slope looks irreversible.  The maintenance of the PC and Mac reader apps is a luxury they simply can no longer afford, especially in the light of declining share of eReading done on these two devices.  It is most unfortunate.

Neither is it clear that B&N is committed to its efforts over the long term to continue facilitating eReading on other device-specific machines.  There may come a time when B&N simply provides an on-line reading app on the web, and forces their customers to do their reading in the cloud.  That way it would have to provide only one app for all customers, regardless of which devices they use.

All of the other major eBook providers have recently provided eReading apps for the cloud, but Sony, Amazon and Kobo are continuing their support for apps that allow off-line reading on Android, iOS, Macs and PCs. 

I hope they continue supporting this versatility of options.  It makes it more convenient for their customers.  There are far too many times when the web is unavailable or inconsistent to users.  When this happens, the only way to read from your library is on a device that has copies of each book in your library.  Without eReading apps this would be impossible.

While this is most handy for their customers, it is expensive for the sellers.  They must employ teams of software developers to write, enhance and maintain each type of eReader app in their stable.  And they must periodically upgrade potentially millions of copies of their apps every time a revision is needed.  This itself is expensive.  Having only one web-based reading app would simplify the process, making it much less expensive.

While the logic of forcing readers to the web is easy to see, it is for me, hard to swallow. I hope Amazon holds the line on the present system.  Its leadership in the market could force their competitors to stay in the game and leave Barnes and Noble as the lone holdout on going cheap.

I take no joy in B&N’s troubles.  But for them it is apparently time for desperate measure.