Quote:
Originally Posted by filmo
This is why released FW has bugs?
|
Occasionally we see a bug that was not in the last version that we got in the beta group. More often they release a FW version (sometimes, it seems, because they have some sort of deadline---like a release in a country that needs language support added in) with bugs they haven't gotten to yet or are still working on.
We also don't get betas when they are preparing to release a new, unannounced, device. It's too easy for their plans to make their way into the public at that point.
Companies that seldom release FW for existing devices have an advantage, I suppose. If you have six months or a year between planned FW refreshes, there is enough time to get it all done between them. Kobo's approach is somewhat different with a bunch of feature improvements in the pipeline and releases as they go--warts and all. They clearly have a priority list for all of this--bug fixes and features-- and I don't always agree. Of course I also don't know about things like fixes that interfere with something else they are doing and which need to wait until that other thing is in place.
For example, I know that they are steadily working on improving the epub3 feature set and compliance for kepubs, and that this is a difficult process to do publicly, with the transitions being released. I think that is a big part of why fixing/improving epubs lags behind the kepub development. On a widely speculative note, Sony is also part of the readmium development group working with epub3, but they have not been releasing FW reflecting the progress that is being made. I expect that at some point (maybe this fall) Sony will have a new device with the FW that reflects all that work that Kobo and all of the readmium folks have been doing. Kobo users have seen that development in progress (and it isn't always pretty, is it?).