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Sarcasm aside, if I wanted to buy an ereader with a dictionary, I would be prepared to pay more. Seeing as the Kobo is my first ereader and I use it only for leisure reading, I'm happy enough looking up the occasional word in a hardcover or on the internet. However, now I'm rather tempted to have a second ereader as well, for all the meatier stuff I have to read...
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Prepared to pay more. Maybe so. Additional features are additional features.
But when any piece of hardware that can have its feature-set expanded exclusively through software, from a companies standpoint, that's almost free.
Of course it's not free, it's additional coding, testing, design, etc. But it's basically nothing compared to a hardware upgrade.
Think of some companies selling routers. The first gen of a new router offers features a,b, c. Through software alone, feature d (say qos) can be added without touching your production line except for the firmware. It's sold like a brand new router when it's really the same one you bought last year with a firmware upgrade.
This is of course, provided the hardware is capable of the newer features. Qos, for example, might be too much of a burden for the older cpu.
So in this case, a dictionary. What does it take resource wise? Some space on the device. I'm sure many would give that up the space for the dictionary.
Surely, the hardware can query a single word in a reasonable amount of time. (Or maybe not with its slow boot time) Interface wise, add 'dictionary' to the display/menu button's menu and once they click that, a cursor is displayed on the first or last word and the user can navigate and click ok.
Again, yes features like this do take development. But c'mon, this isn't new territory for computers. Look at one small or one man developers have done on the ipad/iphone! I'm not an apple owner of any of their hardware but I've been impressed with what small startups have accomplished in little time.
The most complex (or really just new) thing in an ereader is the display. Once you have that, adding a dictionary, or cleaning up the menu (like add 'remove from reading') are minor tweaks that just require some usability testing and minor development time.
It makes me wish sometimes that there was an open (development wise) e-reader. Again, I'm not a fan of apple and I feel they 'control the pond' too much regarding developers and software distribution but at least there is a pond!
Now, I don't expect that here. Most specialized devices like this are not normally where users can develop or contribute to its functionality. And it's a double-edged sword for a company. You can 'open up' your hardware and let the community add features which in turn adds value to your product, but you lose control of when features are introduced.
Say features a, b, c can be added to the koboreader with the current hardware. Well, they can do that, but they might be planning b, c and d as big selling points for kobo2. In an open environment, they lose that control. Or they have to wait for when the newest device is so much better hardware wise that it makes sense to the consumer to buy the newer device in spite of the similar features.
Heh, I brought open platforms into this when it wasn't the topic.
I'd be pleased if they added a dictionary and fix some menu flow options and utilize the hardware at hand. Offer blue tooth syncing with your pc. No more looking for the usb cable (except for charging). Just get your books wirelessly from your pc.
One thing I hope is not hardware related is the boot time. My pc boots faster than this! I only mention this not as a direct slight against the koboreader, (I think it's a pretty cool reader) but to me this would be the one excusable reason to not add features. i.e. We don't want to bloat the software and instead want to keep it lean and responsive like it currently is. But this isn't the case.
Maybe I'm wrong. I googled for a moment but didn't find anything. What are the boot times of the kindle and nook? Anyway, I hope that can be fixed and it's more a software issue. At least go back to the book & page I was reading when turning it on. I can see why they didn't though; that would perceivably increase the boot time, even though it would be slightly quicker because the user wouldn't have to intervene and select a book. And I say intervene because people usually want to carry off where they were before, not start some new content each time they turn it on.
The most complex thing it seems (only because of the issues I read from others updating the firmware) , is getting a proper firmware upgrade routine. But once they have that in place, adding some of the features people want added could be added to the current hardware and does not actually require a kobo2. The most complex thing would probably be the bluetooth syncing, but even that's a standard. The other features like a dictionary are fairly trivial from a development standpoint.
But unlike kindle, it's too soon for a new kobo (chirstmas at the earliest?) as they just released this hardware. So they have to stay competitive and price-cut and/or add features. This makes me optimistic that we will see some new features added. The pitfall for them with this is none of the current packaging would boast of any of these additional features.
And it's good to see some company communication from kobo on these forums. To me, that says a lot in this age. Not in an age of the consumer being distanced more and more from the company, but in an age where it is foolish not to listen to your customers when you have the cheapest means ever to hear them loud and clear.