Why You Can Trust CNET Barnes & Noble's 'Free Fridays' adds apps
To kick off this expansion of the weekly freebie program, you can get OfficeSuite Professional 7 -- a $14.99 value -- free of charge for your Nook tablet.
When it comes to free stuff for your tablet or e-reader, Amazon rules the roost.
The Amazon Appstore is home to a kajillion freebies for Kindle Fires, while the Kindle Store offers literally thousands of free Kindle e-books.
Barnes & Noble, on the other hand, offers a comparatively limited selection of free apps in its curated store, and I couldn't even find a "free books" section in the Nook Book Store.
At least there's Free Fridays, which gives you a free e-book every week. Today, for example, you can get the Nook edition of David Rhodes' "Driftless," which has an average 4.5-star rating from a few dozen readers. Amazon charges $11.53 for the Kindle edition. Not too shabby.
And starting today, Free Fridays will include a free app -- and not an always-free app like, say, Temple Run 2, but something you'd normally have to pay for. In fact, the first giveaway is a doozy: OfficeSuite Professional 7, which normally sells for $14.99.
This app, and future Free Fridays freebies, can be downloaded directly on your Nook Color, Nook Tablet, Nook HD, or Nook HD+. Act fast, though: It really is a one-day-only giveaway.
I can't imagine this will sway many tablet or e-book shoppers who are on the fence between Kindle and Nook, but it's certainly a step in the right direction. That said, it seems like B&N could try to level the playing field a bit more. Adding more everyday freebies to its app store would be a great start.
Your thoughts?