Play Books -- Can't remove titles

[sutekh137]

Hey all,

I'm enjoying my A100 so far, but have an annoying issue with Play Books.

Not sure if it is built in for all Acer tablets or just the one I got from GameStop (it was bundled with some nice games...), but there are three "classic" titles in Play Books by default. I want them gone.

No matter how much I remove them from the tablet (both "remove from device" and "remove from library"), they keep re-appearing. If I "Delete Permanently" the titles in Play Books on the Google web site (via my desktop computer), they disappear from there, but still keep re-appearing on the tablet (and then will re-appear in Google Play on my computer screen right before my eyes).

I can't uninstall the Play Books app because it is a system app. And no, I'm not going to root over this, not with ICS coming out in the next couple of weeks (supposedly).

Can anyone tell me how to get rid of these stupid books? In case there is any question about the titles I am talking about (or if others have a similar scenario), the books are "Treasure Island", "Wuthering Heights", and "The Three Musketeers."

Please help me get rid of these books, as I'd like to conserve the A100's decent-but-not-huge 8 GB if internal card space as much as possible.

Thanks in advance for any ideas anyone has!

Thanks!
sutekh137

 

[mightyfacundo]

I wish I could help you but I am able to remove books simply by choosing "remove from library". I tried it with a book I finished awhile back, and it still hasn't reappeared on my a100. Did the books come with the tablet when you bought it? Maybe you can go into the files using Astro. Look in "File Manager", then "Android", then "Data", then the file marked "com.google.android.apps.books", then "files". I would think that if the books came with the tablet and keep appearing, they would show up here under files. If they do, click and hold on the books and choose delete. That should get rid of them hopefully. If not, hopefully someone else has a better idea. Good luck.

 

[sutekh137]

I wish I could help you but I am able to remove books simply by choosing "remove from library". I tried it with a book I finished awhile back, and it still hasn't reappeared on my a100. Did the books come with the tablet when you bought it? Maybe you can go into the files using Astro. Look in "File Manager", then "Android", then "Data", then the file marked "com.google.android.apps.books", then "files". I would think that if the books came with the tablet and keep appearing, they would show up here under files. If they do, click and hold on the books and choose delete. That should get rid of them hopefully. If not, hopefully someone else has a better idea. Good luck.

mighty,

Thanks for the response!

Yeah, I think it is something built into the Books app for my particular version (yes, it did come with some "extras", like games, from GameStop).

I discovered that if I download another book, the three built-in titles disappear. If I delete the new book so that my library is ostensibly empty, the three built-in titles re-appear. So there must be something inside the app (or an update to the app). I could uninstall the updates for Books (because one of those "updates" might be the crapware that keeps re-loading the titles), but then I am not sure if I would be missing some other more essential updates/fixes. If I root the thing and just uninstall/reinstall the app, that would probably do it, too.

I couldn't find the folder you mention, at least not the final com.google.android.apps.books one. I'm not totally familiar with the file system yet (I use ES Explorer), but is that something I would also need root to see? I'll look more when I have the tablet home and can explore via my Mac and USB cable (just easier that way).

In any case, unless I have no other books in the library and unless I were to force them offline, the three "phantom" titles aren't taking up much (if any) disk space. So I not too worried any more. Just more of a control thing. *smile*

I appreciate you taking the time to respond with a knowledgeable answer!

Thanks,
sutekh137

 

[mightyfacundo]

I don't think you would lose much functionality if you uninstalled the updates, and if you did, you could always just update it again, so I'd give it a shot.

I'm not familiar with ES Explorer, so I'm not sure where you would look to find the file I mentioned before. Did you have any luck finding the books when you hooked it up to your Mac? If you didn't, you could always download Astro File Explorer and give that a try.

 

[sutekh137]

Yeah, that is a good point about updates... I didn't get a chance to check on my Mac. I think I am going to wait until the ICS update since it is coming out in a bit over a week, and I will see how everything shakes out. Will also take a look at Astro and see if it looks like it has advantages of ES (ES has been pretty solid for me so far, I really like being able to browse files!)

I appreciate your ideas and time, very nice of you. If I figure anything out, I'll be sure to post again here.

Looking forward to the ICS update and new Chrome browser!

Thanks,
sutekh137