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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Install Android Market On Nook Honeycomb Tablet


In the last post, I walked through getting Deeper Blue's Honeycomb preview image running on the Barnes and Noble Nook Color. I've been using the Nook as a Honeycomb tablet for a couple of weeks and overall it works very well. There are a couple of bugs but that is to be expected from a preview image. There was one particular thing that bothered me though, there is no Android Market. If you look through the FAQ on this forum.xda-developers.com thread, you will understand why Deeper Blue did not include the Market in the image.
Q: Why is there no Market app installed?
A: There's no legal way to distribute the google apps with a ROM.
While they are not included in the image, there is a way to get the Android Market, GMail, and Maps apps on your Nook Honeycomb tablet.  Here's what you will need:
While you don't actually need the Android Central Sideload Wonder Machine (AC_SWM), it is probably the simplest way to get the adb.exe file you will need. Adb.exe is used to push the Android Market app to your Nook. Plus, AC_SWM is a handy application if you own any Android devices. If you already have adb.exe from the Android SDK or another application, you can use that adb.exe instead of AC_SWM.

Start off by going to http://nookdevs.com/NookColor_USB_ADB#Windows_XP.2C_Vista_and_7 and following the directions to get the Nook Color driver working in Windows. The good folks at nookdevs.com have done a great job of explaining the driver installation so I'm not going to repeat the information here. You will not need the full Android SDK so just do steps 2 (II) and 3 (III); "II. Patch the USB Driver files" and "III. Connect the device and install the drivers." Come back here after you have the driver installed.

After the driver is installed, extract AC_SWM to the root of your C: drive. It needs to be in a folder named C:\AC_SWM like the image below.



Next, extract the contents of HoneyGApps.v2.zip in to the C:\AC_SWM folder. You need to end up with adb.exe and all of the .apk files from HoneyGApps.v2.zip in the same folder (C:\AC_SWM), see below.


Turn on your Nook Honeycomb tablet. Choose Apps->Settings->Applications->Development and make sure that USB debugging is enabled. Now, connect the USB cable to the Nook and your computer.

Navigate back to C:\AC_SWM and double click on HoneyGAppInstall.cmd.

Hopefully, you see output like the image above and it runs without errors. If everything goes smoothly, your Nook will reboot. After Honeycomb starts back up, choose Apps and look for the new Market, Gmail, and Maps icons. Enjoy!

If you found this information was helpful for you or if you ran into trouble, please leave a comment below. Thanks for visiting!

All of the credit for the Nook Honeycomb image, Nook driver, and Google Apps work should go to the development communities at xda-developers and nookdevs.com.
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6 comments:

  1. RobJune 12, 2011 at 9:15 PM

    I get an error when trying to run HoneyGAppInstall.cmd:

    error: device not found

    Windows Device Manager recognizes "Android Composite ADB Device"

    What did I do wrong?

    ReplyDelete
  2. marshalgrahamJune 14, 2011 at 5:22 PM

    Rob, what does the output of "adb devices" show? It sounds like a driver problem. If adb devices does not show your Nook then you might try uninstalling/reinstalling the driver with a reboot in between. Good luck!

    Marshal

    ReplyDelete
  3. RobJune 14, 2011 at 6:39 PM

    Marshal,

    I have Windows Vista 64-bit. In Device Manager, it shows up as Android Phone>Android Composite ADB Interface. All commands that the try to run during the install of HoneyGAppInstall.cmd produce the same error msg. If I try to reinstall the Windows driver, should I delete the .android folder under my folder (c:\User\Rob)?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ben RobertsJune 23, 2011 at 10:55 PM

    Same problem here, Windows 7 32-bit.

    I have an item in Device Manager for "Android Phone> Android Composite ADB Interface"

    But I get "error: device not found" trying to run HoneyGAppInstall.cmd

    Rebooted and reinstalled the driver, same error, and here's what I get for "adb devices" command.

    C:\AC_SWM>adb devices
    * daemon not running. starting it now *
    * daemon started successfully *
    List of devices attached


    c:\AC_SWM>

    ReplyDelete
  5. marshalgrahamJune 24, 2011 at 12:04 PM

    Sorry Rob, I missed your reply earlier. I used two different Windows 7 x64 computers and didn't run in to any problems. I know the problem deals with getting adb to recognize your device. I would suggest going to nookdevs.com and asking for help on their forums. They are far more knowledgeable about this than I am. Here's a link to the nookdevs.com Nook Color page, http://nookdevs.com/Portal:NookColor.

    Thanks for visiting!
    Marshal

    ReplyDelete
  6. musicmkr59July 22, 2011 at 2:37 PM

    Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! After working on trying to root my nook and install the Android Market every evening for the past week and having a horrible time trying to get it all to come together, it finally worked. Your instructions were very clear and was the last piece of the puzzle. Thank you again!!!

    ReplyDelete

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