Thread: To sync or not to sync
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Old 01-23-2019, 12:00 AM   #31
davidfor
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Sydney, Australia
Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeanPierre View Post
If you really expect your device to sync this frequently without your explicit invocation, what is the point of having a scheduled sync at all? It seems to me that the device would sync itself frequently enough just by happenstance as you go about your business using the device.
Because designs change. Because things like the likely availability of a WiFi network change. Because someone added something they thought would solve a problem (scheduled sync) and found out it didn't (need to have all the books on the device).

The scheduled sync was added first. Some time later, the sync-when-doing-stuff was added. Because of user demand. At that point, the scheduled sync became less important. But, removing it takes work. It still works and until a good reason comes along, there is no reason to remove it.
Quote:
Same question to the others that follow this line of thinking.

I find it stretches credulity that a non-technical end user unfamiliar with the inner workings of the device to infer this the same way as you. If anything is atypical about this group of Kobo users, it's that some of you are significantly more experienced with the device than the typical user, and I think this is colouring your expectations of how the average user will interpret what's meant by the messages in the settings.

The average user will interpret disabling automatic sync to mean that all syncs henceforth will require manual invocation. End of story.

In order to infer otherwise, the user would need to be aware of other circumstances under which the device could justifiably be expected to sync without the user's invocation. I believe that many of you are too experienced and knowledgeable to recognise this.
And yes, a lot of people here have interpreted it that way. But, once you make a change, and it doesn't do what you thought it did, don't you have another look and see why? At that point you actually read everything on the screen and it might twig that it wasn't the option you were after. No matter how badly that option is worded, it does one thing. And all the information needed to know what it actually does is on that screen.

And am I allowed to be amused by the fact we are talking about an ereader. A device for reading books. A device that simple ownership and use implies people are literate. But, we are talking about the fact that these people don't actually read the stuff in front of them.
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