The point of a Kobo like ereader is to create an experience where the purchase and acquiring of ebooks is as quick and easy as possible. This is both for the convenience of consumers and the profit of Kobo.
Kobo has done a good job at that, with desktop syncing for Windows and Mac working nicely (though slowly), and books syncing right away via wifi to the ereader itself.
Unfortunately, in my usage pattern, I see a few problems which may be useful to fix. This is so because every other ereader firmware has the same issues which results in user inconvenience, and there would be all the more of a reason for consumers to purchase Kobo products when these issues have been addressed.
1. I am a Linux user and as much as I love my Kobo Touch, I love Linux many times more. Use Windows should not be a recommended solution.
2. I attend a university, therefore having access to
WPA Enterprise. Back at my student hall, I lack wifi and thus setup an
ad-hoc network via my laptop. Both are unsupported.
In my view, good wireless sync support would be of paramount importance due to reasons I have mentioned at the head of this post.
Re: 1. The Linux userbase is very small. I realise that Kobo supported a Linux version for desktop for a short while but had to stop support due to lack of resources and demand. The least a Linux user could have therefore would be good wireless support, which leads to point 2.
Re: 2. When I mentioned the lack of WPA Enterprise support before, I was told that:
Quote:
Originally Posted by taming
Don't most college students have laptops with USB ports? And phones that can create WiFi hotspots are not uncommon. It's not like people have to be connected to WiFi to read a book.
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This is unreasonable as one should not need to take a seat, switching one's laptop on and creating a wifi hotspot to bring Kobo some revenue. The idea behind having an ereader with wireless connectivity is that book purchases and reading occur quickly and without hassle.
I understand that having WPA Enterprise support has many complications including the storage of AP credentials. However, I would expect support for at least ad-hoc shared networks which is what I can readily create using my laptop.
Some Amazon Kindle models offer 3G support which provides constant store connectivity and syncing capabilities. I would not underestimate the profitability of that feature. The least Kobo could do, is keep people as much connected as possible, whether it be at work, academic institution, or home.
Thanks.
PS. I would also heavily recommend that the syncing be worked on. I find that it is very un-necessarily slow and could be improved on drastically. I have also noticed sporadic service failures which causes sync on my Kobo to fail.