Kobo pulled their Windows 8 app! [Now available again]

[dhuhtala]

Yes, there are a few solutions to get around the problem... my concern is how well is Kobo doing as an organization if they can't get their application to work on one of the most mainstream (granted it's not well-liked but it is mainstream) operating systems on the planet! 3 years ago, not having a Windows app would have meant the company would not survive. They can probably get away with it for a while - it's better to pull an app and fix it than continue to let it sit in the Windows Store and gather even more negative comments. But I would have expected a fix to come very, very quickly...I have to question Kobo's ability as a company to deliver.

[latepaul]

Windows x86 is mainstream. Neither Windows RT nor Metro apps are yet.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by latepaul

Windows x86 is mainstream. Neither Windows RT nor Metro apps are yet.

Windows 8/8.1 currently has more desktop/laptop marketshare than OS X. Every Windows8/8.1 PC can run modern apps. Which means that the potential user base for a Kobo (or any) modern app is larger than the entire user base for any OS X app.

[robko]

Originally Posted by toddos

Windows 8/8.1 currently has more desktop/laptop marketshare than OS X. Every Windows8/8.1 PC can run modern apps. Which means that the potential user base for a Kobo (or any) modern app is larger than the entire user base for any OS X app.

And any Windows 8/8.1 desktop/laptop can run the Kobo desktop and read that way. Albeit, it's not great as a reader, but it is functional. And there are lots of other options (calibre, ADE etc.). And my guess is that most people running Win 8 on anything other than a phone/tablet aren't using a lot of "apps" anyway, and those reading on desktops/laptops are probably a smaller portion of the ebook market than those reading on tablet/phone (where W8 isn't a big player -- and I say that as someone who loves his W8 tablet). I would suspect Kobo would know roughly how many are using it on W8 devices of any sort if only from sync's. If they aren't doing anything on it, that probably means it's not a big enough part of the market for them to cater to. Kobo is a lot smaller than Amazon (not withstanding the fact that they are owned by Raukten now, the Kobo division is still small) and only has so many resources to go around.

[dhuhtala]

Not true...I am using a Surface RT tablet and cannot run the desktop app. If I wanted a desktop app, I would have bought a laptop instead of a tablet.

Obviously Kobo does not have enough resources to go around...therefore the only logical conclusion is...it's a very bad idea to invest further in Kobo books, e-readers, etc...

Moving on to Kindle...

[meeera]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Not much choice on a Surface tablet. Might as well complain of being "stuck" with OS X on a Mac.

This seems kinda an odd comparison to me, since you can run various flavours of Windows on a Mac as well as OS X. Or just open Terminal.app and UNIX away.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by dhuhtala

Not true...I am using a Surface RT tablet and cannot run the desktop app. If I wanted a desktop app, I would have bought a laptop instead of a tablet.

Obviously Kobo does not have enough resources to go around...therefore the only logical conclusion is...it's a very bad idea to invest further in Kobo books, e-readers, etc...

Moving on to Kindle...

Why do you want the desktop app? Modern Kobo readers don't require it, and if it's about reading ebooks, there are a brazillion other ways you can do that. Perhaps if you tell us what you're trying to achieve, we can help?

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by dhuhtala

Not true...I am using a Surface RT tablet and cannot run the desktop app. If I wanted a desktop app, I would have bought a laptop instead of a tablet.

Obviously Kobo does not have enough resources to go around...therefore the only logical conclusion is...it's a very bad idea to invest further in Kobo books, e-readers, etc...

Moving on to Kindle...

I have a full Windows 8 tablet pc and last I checked the Kobo Metro app is still working. They might have pulled it from the market, but it stays installed if you downloaded earlier. And I see the app on my wife's Surface RT. Not that we want to use it for reading! Still, the whole thing is stupid, Kobo probably could have gone to Microsoft and received some financial support for their app.

[taming]

Originally Posted by dhuhtala

I contacted tech support and they informed me that it's been removed from the Store - and there is no estimated timeframe to have it added back in.

Kobo (and most companies) don't share things like estimated timelines with the folks who work the help desk. You don't want to promise something for a specific date only to get bad and angry comments if it comes out a couple of days late. I haven't lost the old version on my windows 8 machine. They may just have pulled it for a few days while they fix something, improve it, make it work better with 8.1, or add something new.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by dhuhtala

Not true...I am using a Surface RT tablet and cannot run the desktop app. If I wanted a desktop app, I would have bought a laptop instead of a tablet.

And that's the problem. Because you're running RT you need the Win8 Metro app or a native RT app. So you're a minority of a minority - hence my comments about it not being mainstream.

And I'm not passing judgement on you for choosing a Surface RT device - they looked good when they came out and I nearly bought one myself. But where we are now I'd have to see them take off before I'd commit to one. Microsoft has a habit of attempting to get into a particular market and then ending up dropping it.

As far as Windows 8 being as big an installed base as OS X. That may be true but Apple has always had bigger clout than their actual numbers imply. On the basis of numbers alone we should be seeing far more commercial apps with Linux versions than we do (Kobo actually has a version of the Desktop for Linux but it's not been updated for over a year).

In any case comparing install bases is misleading because the indications are the most Win8 users aren't using Metro apps all that much. And a lot of them are only Win8 users because they bought a new PC and stuck with what it had on it.

However none of this necessarily means Kobo is not intending to fix the Win8 app, probably just that it's not highest on their priority list.

[pl001]

Originally Posted by latepaul

Microsoft has a habit of attempting to get into a particular market and then ending up dropping it.

On the contrary, they have bulled their way into almost everything they do and are not afraid to lose large amounts of money to gain a foothold. Bing, XBox, Office, IE, etc, etc, etc. They even stuck it out with Zune until the PMP market died.

Metro/Modern is critical to their future. It isn't going anywhere. People tend to forget that it's only been around for a year yet during that year the Windows store has grown faster than Apple's or Google's did. And they have provided excellent ongoing support for the Surface RT.

All that said, Windows devices haven't been the greatest for reading. 8" tablets of good enough quality for reading are only now coming on the market. As somebody else said, I'm sure Kobo knows better than us how many people were using the app, what priority they should give it, and the details of what needed to be fixed. That's really what it boils down to. But fear not, it will come.

On a related note, I discovered last week that the Windows Nook app has improved dramatically. I'm not sure when that happened, since it was intially so bad I never bothererd to use it.

[pl001]

Originally Posted by meeera

This seems kinda an odd comparison to me, since you can run various flavours of Windows on a Mac as well as OS X. Or just open Terminal.app and UNIX away.

Windows RT is NOT full Windows, it is for ARM processors. Just as iOS is not OS X. You can't install or run x86 "desktop" programs on RT.

Edit:

Sorry, I completely misread what you were saying. Is it the weekend yet?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by latepaul

And I'm not passing judgement on you for choosing a Surface RT device - they looked good when they came out and I nearly bought one myself.

They still are a great choice if your use for a PC is web browsing, email, and using Word and Excel. That covers what an awful lot of people use PCs for.

[Antioch]

Originally Posted by HarryT

They still are a great choice if your use for a PC is web browsing, email, and using Word and Excel. That covers what an awful lot of people use PCs for.

And Surface 2 improved on a lot of things. Better performance, faster memory access, the second kick-stand setting (tried it out in person, it makes a world of difference!), etc. I'm strongly debating picking one up this holiday season, if not for myself then for my mother.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by dhuhtala

No, not the desktop app...the tablet app, the "Metro" app, the Modern UI App...whatever you want to call it now. I'm not talking about the desktop application - I don't use that either. The Metro app is the only way to use Kobo on Windows 8 tablets like the Surface RT tablets. You can't install the desktop apps on a Surface RT. This is equivalent to pulling Kobo out of the Google Play store or from iTunes Store. In my mind, not having my main e-book reader on my tablet would make the tablet nearly useless to me. This is a really big deal - both for Windows 8 tablets and for Kobo. They're essentially not supporting the Windows 8 tablet platform1

The Windows RT that is pretty much a dead letter? Other than Microsoft/Nokia, I am aware of no other manufacturers of Windows RT tablets that have not discontinued them. Not hard to believe given that Windows RT tablet sales wouldn't make a rounding error in Android or iOS tablet sales.

If you are running an AMD/Intel flavour of Windows on a tablet, the Kobo desktop app works. If not, you might want to try Kobo's Instant Reader though given the quirkiness of IE 11, you may run into issues.

Regards,
David