Quote:
Originally Posted by Ripplinger
Being somewhat still new to using the Kobo, what is it about epubs that you don't like? And what is it about kepubs that you prefer? It's a serious question for me, I might be missing something important and not even be aware of it.
The only differences I've noticed is the annoying title bar at the top for kepubs (which I hate). And that kepubs give you more Reading Life Stats, but for myself, the cutesiness of those stats wore off quickly the first time I had to do a factory restore and they all were reset to zero. So that makes them entirely useless to me even as a "cute-to-have but not needed item." And some of them just never update no matter what you do, even when using the kepub format (like the highlight award for me never updates).
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I thought about not answering this even though I believe you are asking a serious question. I decided to answer, anyway, but I don't expect to engage in much dialog about what I have written. My blood pressure won't take a whole lot of tumult when I am doing something i do for fun and some of what i have to say may set some folks off.
Please remember that this is just one person's personal opinion.
I read almost entirely on an Aura these days. It replaced my glo, which my husband now uses. I may not be the right person to ask for a glo vs glo comparison.
From day one, the Aura had top titles. One of the first things I did was look at the difference in the amount of content displayed on the Aura with titles, and the Glo (which did not have them). Using the same book, same font, same size--a font and size I use routinely--I noticed that the Aura displayed 8 lines worth of glo content more than did the glo itself. This was when there were folks complaining that there was no more content on the Aura than they saw on other devices. I actually like the titles on the Aura--the page looks balanced, and I very often look at the menu that is invoked from the top title margin.
Using the kepub format, text almost always goes to the bottom of the page, at least it does using Georgia in the size I read at. I had not often run into epub pages where there is very little text on a page--and that was almost always on free books of the earlyish Gutenberg flavour. I did though notice that I fairly often had room for a few more lines of text on epubs.
I don't seem to have hyphenation issues in kepubs, even though I do not use a custom hyphenation dictionary (an option using the driver). Fonts in italics display properly in kepubs. In epubs, Avenir Next, Gil Sans, and Kobo Nickel display them (incorrrectly) as bold.
I like the extra information regarding the amount of time left to finish a chapter or finish the book on kepubs. I don't pay much attention to reading life. The time estimates give me more valuable information than page numbers. Page turns might be useful, but page numbers, on digital devices, not so much. The numbers have never been right for me--in part because I was reading on Kobo devices before there was a reading life, and of course because the sideloaded numbers do not survive a reformat (they do not sync). I have no interest at all in awards.
That's about it, I guess. It is why I prefer kepubs.
Do you happen to remember the post where I pointed folks to a presentation by Mike Serbinis?
http://www.media-server.com/m/p/3yxbb6q3
In it, Serbinis divided Kobo customers into 7 categories (slide 29). The top two categories included 29% of their customers but accounted for 80% of their revenue. The two categories were:
- 15%--women and men who embrace both books and technology, with reading playing an active role in connecting with others. They are interested in reading leadership but less interested in mobile functionality.
- 14% On the move younger professionals who love mobile devices and all forms of entertainmnet. Interested in culture, reading and books.
By age alone, I would fall into a category of "older women (19%) who love two things: books and talking about books, but would prefer to borrow them from the library or a friend than pay"
Speculating a bit, I'm guessing that those top two categories (remember 80% of revenue) are mostly reading Kobo books in kepub format. I am just an outlier. I am willing to bet that Kobo is building mostly with the top two categories of readers in mind.
I just thought I would throw that into the mix...
Thanks for asking the question, Ripplinger!