NOTE: This firmware has been pulled from the automated rollout due to performance issue discussed in this thread. It is still available for manual download and installation. See this post for details.
As has been discovered, there is a new firmware, version 4.6.9960. There are a number of changes as listed in the first post. The links given are correct at the moment, but Kobo might fix them soon to correct the month in the URL. If they do this, the devices will download the firmware correctly as they query the server for the address before attempting to download it.
I believe this will be rolling out to all devices except the Mini. It should also be going to all locations, but Kobo will use there usual deployment strategy (one or two affiliates and gradually deploy to other affiliates and nations).
As well as the listed changes, the other things I can think of are:
- Major improvement in the speed of opening the Collections list. My 50-odd pages of collections was taking nearly a minute to open. It is now down around 10 seconds.
- Large Print mode: Uses a much larger font in the interface
- Option to turn it on is in the "Beta Features".
- Overall, this works well, but there are a few places where text overlaps (eg. firmware version on the Device Information page). This is why it is a "Beta feature".
- Does not affect the text in a book, only the interface.
- Book list changes:
- Page numbers have been moved to bottom of the screen and "Go to page" is added.
- The filters menu shows how many books are in each filter.
- The book menu can be opened by tapping the three dots on the right opens the menu for the book. A long press on the book will still open the menu.
- Screen refresh:
- Now has "Chapter" and from 1 to 10 pages. The "Chapter" option works very well on my devices.
- Seems to be a lot less ghosting. With the "Chapter" option set, I was able to page back and forth several times through a 20 page chapter with no real decrease in readability.
- Can choose the page forward and back actions. Choices are "Tapping or swiping" and "Swiping only".
- There are changes to handle sorting of books named with Japanese characters. I have no idea how this works.
- When reading, buttons for the ToC and Reading Settings have been added to the bottom bar.
- When adjusting light level using sideswipe, if the format being read displays the title, the light level is displayed instead of the title.
- If an ACSM file is found on the device when importing books, a message will be displayed. The book will not be downloaded from the Adobe Server.
Bugs fixes:
- Browser download now works for all sites that I have tested it with.
- For the filename, the browser download will use the "Content-Disposition" header if it is supplied, otherwise it will build it from the URL.
- I don't know if DropBox works as I do not use it. GeoffR reports that downloading from DropBox works.
- Note: Occasionally, the download progress dialog disappears, but the download continues and you will be notified when the download finishes.
- Reimporting kepubs sideloaded to SD card has been fixed.
- I think the problem where some kepub would restart the device when first opened has been fixed. The "think" is because I have not been able to reproduce it with the beta firmware.
- In an epub, if you use the navigation bar to move to another part of the book and then press the return button, it goes back to the correct place rather than a page or so earlier (Note: This might have been fixed before, I just hadn't noticed it.)
- Fix for Pocket articles that caused a restart when opened.
- Double screen refresh after selecting a word and dismissing the annotations menu
That is what I can think of at the moment. I will update it if anything else comes to mind.
calibre
Apart from the firmware version number, there are no changes that affect calibre. I should have the update included in the next calibre release. Until then, it is safe to use the "Attempt to support newer firmware versions" option in the KoboTouch and KoboTouchExtended drivers.