Here I have interviewed Robbie Trencheny, an 18-year-old student who is also the team leader at nookDevs (username: robbiet480) a wiki and an online forum for Nook enthusiasts. He has been the first to successfully root the nook. Going further, he has gotten it to run multiple apps, including Pandora, BusyBox, and a Android web browser and has posted instructions on nookDevs on how anyone can do it.
So anyways, here goes:
Q: What is your name?
A: Robbie Trencheny, but I go by robbiet480 on IRC and online
Q: What is your current occupation?
A: I am a full time student in high school.
Q: What are your interests?
A: Computers, the Internet, Linux, Mac, Hackintosh and of course, the nook.
Q: What has been your motivation for nook hacking?
A: I knew it ran Android from the start and knew how powerful Android was/is. When the nook was announced Barnes and Noble said they weren't releasing a SDK for a while so I decided to instead push that date up myself and go ahead and root it.
Q: What were the major steps in hacking the nook?
A: It mainly came down to someone (poutine from #nookdevs) opening up their nook. Once inside we found the microSD OS card, put it in a computer, edited a file and we had root.
Q: Did you have any roadblocks along the way? If yes, what were they?
A: Not really, other then no one wanting to open their nook up first! Oh and also an annoying issue where Bravo (the device's codename for the software) would shutoff the wifi after a certain period of time. It took about 3 hours to figure out how to make it stop doing that. Since then we haven't had any issues.
Q: Did anything, in particular, surprise you when you were hacking the nook?
A: I was honestly shocked when we found out that the whole OS runs on microSD instead of the traditional NAND Flash chips that you see in embedded devices these days. I was further shocked when we found that the system was not encrypted... at any level, in any app.
Q: How do you feel about overcoming them?
A: Once we got past the wifi issues it has been smooth sailing.
Q: What is the current state of nook hacking?
A: We are hoping to have a software root available to the public soon. Personally I am working on apps and overall user experience of the nook.
Q: What do you think is the future for the nook eReader?
A: I hope that B&N releases a "official" SDK for developers or at least opens up nook a bit more. The way they built the software was basically taking a stock Android 1.5 (Cupcake) build, adding a few apps and tweaks here and there. I think this, along with the rushed timeline, causes the majority if not all the problems the nook is currently experiencing. Once B&N gets past that I hope to see new features coming out.
Q: What impact do you think your work will be on Barnes and Noble's plans for the nook?
A: Well, I would like to say that after we exposed them and their lack of security, they will seek to improve the nook, the Android OS on it and the overall nook experience. Thank you Robbie for this interview and I hope that you will be successful in your nook hacking endeavors.
