NOOK Developer Workshops at DevJam, Mobile+Web DevCon in San Francisco

Are you going to be in San Francisco in June or July? Maybe you are coming out for Google IO or the Mobile+Web DevCon. NOOK Developer will be hosting workshops this summer telling about the developer opportunity on NOOK devices and steps to join and bring your apps and make money!

During Google IO we will present free workshops across the street at DevJam taking place in Moscone Center South. Choose a convenient time and we’ll provide the workshop, food & drinks, and a chance to win one of our NOOK Tablets. Tesla Motors Blog

In July NOOK Developer will present a pre-summit workshop at Mobile+Web DevCon at the Marines Memorial Club & Hotel. This for-pay workshop will have additional opportunities to network with NOOK Developer staff, try NOOK devices, enjoy food & drinks, and hope to win one of our NOOK Tablets. Guest speakers from Ansca will talk about bringing Corona apps to NOOK devices.

Hope to see you in San Francisco!

Behaving Well with SD-Cards

One of the advantages of NOOK devices is the SD-card slot which lets customers add up to 32Gb of additional storage for their books, movies, documents and more.

While developers cannot move their apps to the SD-card, they can use the card as additional storage for app data, media files, downloads, and more. But what if the user removes the card and then tries your app? Do you check to make sure that the card and your data are there every time you run? If the user runs your app with the card and without the card, does your app make sure that the app data stays consistent?

Log in and read this article for more information and sample source code you can download and make sure your app behaves well with SD-cards.

Free Trial and Full For-Pay Versions of an App

Developers have been asking us how to distribute free versions of their apps to users but with a path to monetization. We have introduced a way for developers to deliver a free trial version of their app, maybe with limits on the number of levels to play, or only a certain amount of time to play before ending, giving the user an incentive and path to upgrade to the full version of the app.

Just build two versions of your app — the full version and the limited “Trial” version. When you are ready to submit your app, upload both the full and the trial APKs. 

When the customer is considering your application, they can choose to purchase or get the Free Trial version. See this example purchase dialog:

Customers can try your app and use it until they reach the limit you have set. You choose how to present the up-sell opportunity to buy the app. For example, see this splash screen with an “Upgrade Now!” button:

Pressing the button downloads the full version which replaces the trial version and is still able to access any user or game data that has already been created during the use of the trial version. The trial version uses the Shop Intent with the EAN (unique ID) of the for-pay version to present the offer to upgrade to the full version.

See the following article for more information: https://nookdeveloper.zendesk.com/entries/20126777-how-do-i-build-a-trial-version-of-my-app

 

CTIA and AnDevCon Events

NOOK Developer will be at CTIA New Orleans next week, May 8-10 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

We are hosting presentations showing the Developer Opportunity on NOOK hourly in Mobile Apps theatre, located in booth 6019. If you are going to be visiting CTIA, please come to one of our sessions or just come by to see the latest NOOK devices and talk to us about your applications.

The following week we will be at AnDevCon in Burlingame, California, May 14-17. Attend the Barnes & Noble keynote on Monday at 5:15p by Claudia Romanini and Stephane Maes, and join our developer workshop on Tuesday at 1:45p by me, Tom Chavez.

Act now! Use our discount code BARNESNOBLE to save an additional $200 off the full conference pass price.

Thank You for an Amazing Year of NOOK Apps!

One year ago, we went live with NOOK Apps on the Barnes & Noble storefront. Since then we have released thousands of wonderful apps that are used every day by millions of people – individuals, families and kids alike. By providing a whole new experience of digital content consumption, NOOK complements and extends our customers’ love of reading.

Barnes & Noble customers are pleased with the wide range of apps and content they can enjoy on their NOOK devices and developers are very happy with the amazing success they continue to experience on the NOOK platform. From the NOOK Color to the latest NOOK Tablet, Barnes & Noble looks forward to continuing with this success in expanding our app catalog and delivering engaging apps to satisfy our customers.

So we want to say a big Thank You to you, our app developers, for your part in our amazing first year. As always, our doors are open to you. Onwards in changing the future of reading!

NOOK Apps Developer Policy

If you have ever wondered how we review your app submission, you’ll be pleased to read our NOOK Apps Developer Policy which covers how we do app reviews in our two-step process.

Long before you finish your app, you can submit your meta data for review. This includes the icon, screen shots (or mock-ups), description, categories and rating. Submit this for the first phase of the review process.

While you are waiting for the metadata to be approved, you can work on your app and be ready to submit it as soon as the metadata is approved. Before you submit, please check the brand guidelines and trademark guidance so your app won’t be rejected for these marketing issues.

Want to know what we are going to test in your app? Check the Testing Guidelines document and try these tests and you will greatly increase your chances of getting approved. Even with these guidelines, here are the top issues that cause an app to be rejected. If you avoid these and your app works as it should and follows our guidelines, it won’t be long before it is approved and available in the NOOK Storefront.

Events Page Updated — Come See Us!

We have updated our events list at https://nookdeveloper.barnesandnoble.com/product/events.html. Recently we were in Berlin at DroidCon where the NOOK Developer staff hosted a stand for developers to learn about Barnes & Noble as well as to sign up to deliver their apps on on NOOK devices. It was great meeting German developers and hearing about their Android apps that they want to bring to NOOK and enjoy the success that other developers have selling apps on NOOK devices.

Mobile Monday London hosted NOOK Developer representatives recently at the March 19 meeting. In the afternoon, Nook Developer Evangelist Tom Chavez presented a developer workshop with technical information about developing for NOOK Color and NOOK Tablet, as well as how to join the NOOK Developer program and submit applications for review and release. Steve McDonnell, director of business development,  opened the workshop with a presentation about Barnes & Noble, the NOOK opportunity, and NOOK customer profile–including our “typical purchaser, Julie”.

NOOK Developer will have representatives at London Book Fair April 16-18, CTIA in New Orleans in May, AnDevCon in Burlingame in May, and Google IO in San Francisco at the end of June. Watch our events page for other places NOOK developer staff will be visiting soon.

If you are hosting a developer meetup and would like a representative from NOOK Developer to speak, please send a message to Tom Chavez at tchavez at book.com.

Corona SDK for NOOK Apps

Today Ansca Mobile announced that Corona SDK will be supporting NOOK Color and NOOK Tablet starting December 1 within the Corona SDK daily builds. This is great news for Corona SDK developers who are now enabled to monetize their applications on NOOK Color and NOOK Tablet.

Corona SDK for NOOK Announcement

Welcome Corona SDK Developers!

NOOK Apps Team

International Developers Welcome

We are pleased to announce that we are nearing another significant milestone in the expansion of NOOK Developer.

In the coming days, developers whose companies are based in Canada, Australia, the UK, Ireland, Germany and Spain, will have the opportunity to sell and promote their content and applications to millions of Barnes & Noble customers in the United States.

We invite developers based in these countries to simply apply to become a Qualified NOOK App Developer. Then, once qualified, developers should complete their banking and account information along with their applications Meta-Data submission and submit this for review to us.

The success of NOOK Color™ and NOOK Apps™ continues to grow. Developers in the US are already experiencing amazing monetization opportunities for their apps on NOOK Color.

NOOK Developer Team.

NOOK API: Shop Details (com.bn.sdk.shop.details)

Within the NOOK 1.1 development timeframe we added a Android Intent to deep link to any product within Shop on device. The Shop Details Intent API has a number of great uses on device:

• Cross-marketing between apps
• Link from trial to purchase
• Apps to eBook links
• Link to customer reviews

The key issue with Shop Details is that you need to know the unique id of the product you are going to show. At Barnes & Noble all products have an “EAN” identifier and this id serves as the primary id on bn.com and for any product for sale on NOOK readers. All EANs are listed publicly within the URI for the product on bn.com, here is the product webpage for Angry Birds, notice the number in the URL:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Angry-Birds/Rovio-Mobile-Ltd/e/2940043350251

2940043350251 is the EAN for Angry Birds and if this is passed into the Shop Details Intent, the user is one click from purchasing the application. To help support Shop Details integration, all EANS are assigned when your application is approved for development on nookdeveloper.com shown here:

Simply grab the EAN, and integrate Shop Details into your application logic.

Here is the code for the Shop Details Intent:

import android.content.Intent;
Intent i = new Intent();
i.setAction( "com.bn.sdk.shop.details" );
i.putExtra( "product_details_ean" , "2940043350251" );
startActivity( i );

The result of sending this Intent is that this activity UI will appear over your application:

Given that I have purchased Angry Birds on my device, the Shop Details view allows me to “Open” and “Review” the application. If I had not purchased this application yet, it would show the “Purchase” button instead. The Shop Details Intent API works for any of the 2 Million+ books and apps available on NOOK Color.

As you will discover, the Shop Details API has many uses for application developers and makes it simple to cross-sell and up-sell within applications on NOOK Color.

Cheers,

Ted Patrick
Developer Evangelist
Nookdeveloper.com