Quote:
Originally Posted by taming
You do have some other choices when using the Android App.
Books do not have to download automatically--you can work with the settings so only the cover downloads, with the download of the book being automatically "paused", and not downloaded.
The way sync is *designed* to work, an action on any book on any device is mirrored on your other devices. When you delete a book on your reader, phone, or tablet, it is *supposed* to delete from "I'm Reading" on all devices. They do not delete from the purchased list on the Kobo website, and you can reload the books by using the bookmarking feature on the website.
The books you are currently reading will always be listed first. I just ignore the paused books. My preference is to have only one book open at a time on my phone--the book I am currently reading. When I finish it (on any device) it is marked finished on all devices. If I delete it on any device, it is deleted from all devices. And if I decide the book should be born again, it will be born again on all devices, but I have the option on Android Apps, to not actually download the book, but instead to pause it after the cover downloads.
Hope this helps.
EDIT. Books that you have gotten for free from Kobo can be "lost". Last time i checked, free books did not end up in the purchased list, so getting them onto your device after deletion wasn't possible. I highly recommend that people download ADE copies of free books, when they are available, to avoid this.
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I've been buying books from Kobo for several years (and actually have several of their readers, which I've learned to NEVER let sync to Kobo, or they'll just download until they die of energy drainage (and run out of space).
The app deletes the book entirely from your library (online, from the website) - I looked in Trash and it wasn't there. The fact that the book in question is temporarily free should have nothing to do with the action taken by the app. Had I not gone and immediately re-added to my library, it would have been lost when the price went up later on.
For all I know, it will do the same with books I've actually paid money for. Those can't be as easily added back (except by those with unlimited purses).
As for "adjusting the settings", well, yes, sort of. If you are quick, after logging in, you can go to settings, manage downloads, pause all and leave the books paused. Any books that downloaded in the meantime, you are stuck with (my Mom can't perform the steps fast enough to stop it from downloaded at least a couple of books. I don't consider that anything but the default (and woe to those that don't notice, as they'll have dozens (or hundreds, in my case) of books dumped on their device, which can only be removed by losing them entirely from your library OR by knowing to go in and delete all application data (the books and bookmarks, etc), then to try to open the app again and do a pause before it downloads them again.
I do download copies of my books, but it's really too bad that their app and devices are so ill behaved that you can't risk linking them to your Kobo account (although I suppose some with very small libraries or who don't mind losing their books when done reading and who are in love with social networking must do so, otherwise why would they waste so many programming hours working on that, instead of creating a decent app).
That doesn't even touch on the poor use of the screen and the massive margins that can't be removed (some of which is probably due to poor EPUB formatting, I'm sure, but which can be easily overridden by the programmer of the reader app).
Alas, your idea of how an app should be designed (and mine, Amazon's and most others), doesn't seem to have much impact on how the Kobo apps or devices actually work.