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I agree that almost all the "problems" or "failings" of the AuraHD are firmware (FW)
related not so much hardware related.
It seems to me that the design philosophy is more geared to creating a very tight
lock-in to the Kobo servers and store, and much less to a good reading experience.
It seems they feel the need to have all the features of a teenager's cellphone, as
something they see as features the consumer wants in an ereader. (Makes me wonder
about the focus group they are using, how many of them could even be readers?)
The change in FW that I would prefer would be for them to create and offer the FW
to have an "AuraHD Simple". It would have none of the "Social" features, no "Awards",
no recommendations, and "Syncing" would be optional. It would get rid of the "shelves"
and problem prone cover display user interface, and keep the covers as the first page
of the book, not a factor until loading the book for reading. It would provide us Readers
with words not pictures, from which to select our reading material . A hieratical listing,
that the users can manage themselves.
The unnecessary (and unwelcome to some of us) features have created an overly
complex and error prone architecture that saps the power of CPU. Power that could
better be applied to improving the reading experience. There is no reason the 1000mHz
CPU can't properly handle the 10's of thousands of ebooks that older 400mHz devices
have no problem with.
Kobo could easily have both available, but I doubt that the corporate mindset that
is apparently dead set on a locked-down ecostructure would ever consider this
approach.
Luck;
Ken
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