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Old 01-24-2012, 10:30 AM   #16
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Thank you for the very detailed feedback, very much appreciated. If you could send me the epub I'd appreciate it, simply as I'll be using exactly the same file you are.

It is probably something to do with how we style things, as Kobo styling does apply various things to a book.

I'm one of the QA's on the iOS team and work closely with the developers of the app, so I certainly can, and do provide suggestions to the iOS team as a whole.
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Old 03-17-2012, 03:24 PM   #17
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I assume you guys are hard at work on a Retina display version of the Kobo app for the new iPad. I just got my new iPad, and I notice that while the fonts while reading a book are nice and sharp, page turns are slow. Before you turn a page, the text first briefly goes from sharp to blurry, and after a moment the page turn happens.
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Old 03-17-2012, 04:15 PM   #18
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We are indeed working on a version of the app that has retina versions of the assets, plus we will be addressing any other issues that come up, such as the page turn.
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Old 03-30-2012, 09:49 AM   #19
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Kobo v5.4.1 for iOS is now available in the App Store.

Kobo v5.4.1 for iOS is now available in the App Store.

What's New
★ Improved typography and styling
★ Enjoy crisp text and images on the new iPad's Retina display
★ Share and view public notes that are tied to specific passages
★ Get notified when someone replies to your public note and directly access the thread with a single tap
★ Re-designed homepage to include your recent reads and access to popular free books & free classics
★ Customer-requested bug fix for books disappearing when using an unreliable network
★ Significant performance improvements and bug fixes
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Old 04-03-2012, 02:38 AM   #20
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Wait, no one has mentioned being able to search within the text of a book?

A feature that is in, I believe, every other ebook software out there? =\

How is this not there? Seriously
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Old 04-03-2012, 10:05 AM   #21
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Search Library for a book, and search text inside a book are both things we would like to implement. The former is somewhat less complicated to develop, the latter however is rather complex.

One of the big reasons is that we would need to use a custom webkit, as the one supplied by Apple does not provide search capabilities for HTML. If we did add this then we would still need to load each chapter to search it, which would be slow, therefore we would want to create a search index for a book, and that adds another level of complexity to things.

In addition, a custom webkit adds quite a bit of size to an application, and with Apple
s previous 20MB limit for app downloads over a cellular data connection, it would have taken the app over that size. Now the limit is 50MB, it does leave some room.
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Old 04-03-2012, 03:54 PM   #22
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What's frustrating is that the Kindle app has no problem doing this. iBooks, Kindle and Stanza all have these directly integrated. I cannot imagine them ever not having them, though I may be wrong about that.

Simply put, Kobo seems to be the only app in a slew of apps that does not have what seems to be an incredibly vital feature. I understand you may have reasons as to why it doesn't work, but when ever other eReader iOS app has it stock, even one as "off the cuff" as Stanza, and they're all well under 20 megs (Stanza is under 9) that doesn't seem to make any sense.

My reason for asking is that I am planning on purchasing a book. I really enjoy Reading Life and was considering buying it there.

However the issues I've got:

- No search within the book
- No ability to display actual page number (like possible on Touch reader)
- No ability to select 1 page/2 page display in landscape

Now it'd be nice to be able to sync bookmarks on non-kobo purchased books, but hey so be it. I also wonder if the social sharing options are available in any way on non-kobo ePub books?

Anyway, thanks. I don't mean to sound angry, but this is very frustrating when every other eBook software has the ability to search in books and it seems like it's a backburner problem that might not see a solution for eons.
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Old 04-04-2012, 10:14 AM   #23
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Personally I would love to see search in book, and I think the rest of the development team would like to see it as well. As previously stated, the 20MB limit, which we had to keep under, made this is a pretty impossible task for the reasons I previously outlined.

With a larger allocation now available it opens up more opportunities for us, and one might be search in book as we could have the "space" to implement it.

One other factor here is that we don't have the ultimate final say on what features are implemented. There are business reasons behind the presence and absence of functionality in our application. There are only so many developers an QA staff to work on the project, and if we are dedicating our time to some functionality that is imported from a business sense, this limits our time at implementing other functionality.
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Old 04-04-2012, 08:56 PM   #24
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I get that the kobo app has a lot of pretty features, but like I said when I look at the touch device itself and every other ereader app on the marketplace, all which are well under 20 megs, and they all at the very least have that. Kobo is the only one that doesn't.

I'm not a developer and I apologize that I know that I am not looking at this from that exact perspective, but to me it's like creating a vehicle without a glove box. Sure, you can drive without it but it's become a vital convenience evergreen else.

When I, in effect, have to take a book and search in another program to find a passage of text, it seems terribly silly.
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Old 04-18-2012, 01:54 PM   #25
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Since it's a wish list how about .mobi support <G>. I like the kobo app and hate having to change to another app for books I own in diferent formats.
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Old 04-18-2012, 02:09 PM   #26
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You could use something like calibre to convert the .mobi to.epub, which the Kobo app will read. Obviously it's an additional step, rather than just being able to drag and drop a file onto the app.

Adding support for .mobi, or any format other than .epub or .pdf would require fairly substantial development work as a new renderer would be required.
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Old 05-14-2012, 08:05 AM   #27
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Hi there

I am just wondering if there is any plan to sync between kobo touch and the android app. Or perhaps this has been implemented already. I purchased a kobo touch (very happy with it), and downloaded the kobo app (htc sensation XE) expecting the two would sync after I logged in. They don't.

Am I missing something, or do you have concrete plans to put this into action?

Cheers
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Old 05-25-2012, 05:30 AM   #28
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Here are some thoughts on reading life awards, which I posted in another thread a little while back:

"What happens - gasp! - when the dread day arrives and you bag the very last Kobo trophy? What's to stop Reading Life fans like me from picking up their Kindles at that point? Kobo really should be introducing new awards on a regular basis. There are lots of possibilities - for example:
*Genre-specific awards (e.g. 'read five science fiction books')
*Time-limited awards related to bestseller lists or literary prizes (e.g. 'read a book nominated for the 2012 Booker Prize', 'read two books on the March 2012 New York Times bestseller lists'). There are obvious possibilities for commercial tie-ins here.
*Book specific awards, in conjunction with publishers. This one may seem impractical, but the entertainment check-in app/ network Getglue rolls out film- and TV-show specific awards (or as they call them, 'stickers') all the time. I see no reason why Kobo cannot do the same."
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Old 05-25-2012, 08:50 AM   #29
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I too would like to see more awards. I do remember the first time we saw the creative for them and they looked extremely tantalizing to say the least.

I have a feeling I've mentioned on the other thread about the two different types of awards (server side and client side). Long story short, server side is the way to go if possible, it allows new awards to be given without a new app version being released. Typically something like "have two books from this author in your library to get this award" is something that can be done server side. The app will happily consume this new award when you meet the requirements.

The client side ones, well, as said, new app version needed for that, and unless it is some ultra-special award, or we are releasing a whole batch of new awards, the effort, both dev and QA is rather high to release a new app whose only new feature would be new awards. Personally I'm not against it, but we would need to sell the idea to management.

I've just had a very, very quick look at the getglue site. Do the stickers come in the app as well as being mailed out to you, or are they only mailed?

If I'm reading you correctly, then would something like; Tap and hold on book cover in library, tap the "I liked it" button and you'd get a new award for that book (circle with the book cover image in it, text saying something like "Cameronpaterson liked 'Neuromancer by William Gibson'", and then you can share that award to FB, Twitter, Email, as you can with the other awards.

That or if you add a specific book from a specific publisher(s) (don't forget that different countries can have different publishers for the same book, so we'd need to ideally tie it up with all the pubs for a book in all regions if it's not a worldwide book), then it'd give you the book like award if you purchase it (hmm, sounds like a server side thing to me)
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Old 05-25-2012, 09:20 AM   #30
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Originally Posted by Sharkus View Post
I too would like to see more awards. I do remember the first time we saw the creative for them and they looked extremely tantalizing to say the least.

I have a feeling I've mentioned on the other thread about the two different types of awards (server side and client side). Long story short, server side is the way to go if possible, it allows new awards to be given without a new app version being released. Typically something like "have two books from this author in your library to get this award" is something that can be done server side. The app will happily consume this new award when you meet the requirements.

The client side ones, well, as said, new app version needed for that, and unless it is some ultra-special award, or we are releasing a whole batch of new awards, the effort, both dev and QA is rather high to release a new app whose only new feature would be new awards. Personally I'm not against it, but we would need to sell the idea to management.

I've just had a very, very quick look at the getglue site. Do the stickers come in the app as well as being mailed out to you, or are they only mailed?

If I'm reading you correctly, then would something like; Tap and hold on book cover in library, tap the "I liked it" button and you'd get a new award for that book (circle with the book cover image in it, text saying something like "Cameronpaterson liked 'Neuromancer by William Gibson'", and then you can share that award to FB, Twitter, Email, as you can with the other awards.

That or if you add a specific book from a specific publisher(s) (don't forget that different countries can have different publishers for the same book, so we'd need to ideally tie it up with all the pubs for a book in all regions if it's not a worldwide book), then it'd give you the book like award if you purchase it (hmm, sounds like a server side thing to me)
Hi Sharkus: the physical stickers you can order from Getglue are really only an optional extra: when unlocked within the app, they appear just like awards in Kobo or badges in foursquare. In Getglue you also receive an email about the sticker/ award, and can download a higher res graphic of it if you so wish.
I mainly use Getglue for movie/ film check-ins (I go to the cinema a lot) and I've noticed that many of the stickers I've unlocked are time-limited - only issued within the opening week of a particular film etc. I guess that gives them some kind of scarcity value. Many also come with messages reading something like "This was brought to you by our friends at [such and such a studio]" clearly indicating some kind of commercial tie-in.
The rest of your comments sound pretty much on the money, and certainly a server-side arrangement sound like the practical way to go if Kobo were to start releasing lots of new awards, especially book-specific and time-limited ones.
I suppose working with publishers to introduce Getglue-style title-specific awards could help to raise Kobo's profile with them, broadening your differentiation from the all-conquering Amazon/ Kindle behemoth.
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