Firmware 3.12.0

[Anak]

@davidfor. Thanks for this list. IMO, it gives a good impression what to expect. I think I'll pass on this update.

Originally Posted by davidfor

The reviews are displayed as a separate tab on the details of any kepub from the shop and in the shop. You can read the reviews or write your own. This works OK, but typing is fairly clumsy. The field for the actual review is a bit small so it is hard to view the complete text as you type. Personally, I'll be using the web site if I want to review a book.

Kobo should add review option to the desktop software. Much easier, and can be done off-line. But maybe that is coming with a future release.

Originally Posted by davidfor

You can also simply rate the books. This will be counted as part of the rating in the shop. But, this comes at a loss. Ratings for all other book types has been removed. That means you can't rate your sideloaded books.

Too bad you can't rate sideloaded books anymore. I prefer to read sideloaded books. I don't think I'm gonna rate the kepub version (if present on the device) after I read the sideloaded books. Therefore, this is not an improvement for better recommendations, and very likely no benificial to increase sales.
But were ratings of sideloaded books taken into account anyway? I have no I idea.
Kobo should (try to) match sideloaded books with their book database (based on the book metadata). And if a book can't be matched that way, then ask/give the user the opportunity to match it manually.
And use this info to improve recommendations, similar to books your are reading, etc. This should be benificial to increase sales.

It is impossible to add books that I like to my wishlist. I can only add Kobo's recommendations, etc. to the wishlist. And not my own choices.
I might be wrong here, I think I know my taste better then Kobo does.
At least for now and this might change if Kobo can really improve this feature. Then they might predict with great accuracy what I like to read.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Anak

@davidfor. Thanks for this list. IMO, it gives a good impression what to expect. I think I'll pass on this update.

I suspect that will be the opinion of a lot of people. I made the comment during the beta that there wasn't much that would make people want to upgrade. Adding a few more fixes would have been a good idea.

Kobo should add review option to the desktop software. Much easier, and can be done off-line. But maybe that is coming with a future release.

I haven't updated the desktop app yet, so I don't know. But, I did notice the iPad app had it, so that is an alternative.

Too bad you can't rate sideloaded books anymore. I prefer to read sideloaded books. I don't think I'm gonna rate the kepub version (if present on the device) after I read the sideloaded books. Therefore, this is not an improvement for better recommendations, and very likely no benificial to increase sales.
But were ratings of sideloaded books taken into account anyway? I have no I idea.

Nothing about sideloaded books is supposed to go to the servers. So, their ratings weren't included anywhere. I think they justified removing them as other than displaying them, there is nothing that can be done with them. Or at least officially.

Kobo should (try to) match sideloaded books with their book database (based on the book metadata). And if a book can't be matched that way, then ask/give the user the opportunity to match it manually.
And use this info to improve recommendations, similar to books your are reading, etc. This should be benificial to increase sales.

This was commented on in the beta. I agree it's a good idea. I just don't know how they could do it. It was also suggested that the reviews for sideloaded books could be posted to Facebook or other social media sites. I did suggest Goodreads, but that isn't going to happen.

It is impossible to add books that I like to my wishlist. I can only add Kobo's recommendations, etc. to the wishlist. And not my own choices.

Actually, you can add any book that is in the bookstore on the device. From the lists, press the little arrow on the end of the line and "Add to Wishlist" is there. And it is on the menu when looking at the details. But neither the desktop app or the web site has the function. A weird thing to not have.

I might be wrong here, I think I know my taste better then Kobo does.
At least for now and this might change if Kobo can really improve this feature. Then they might predict with great accuracy what I like to read.

Buying a few books is what has had the most effect for me. When I bought some books for my son, the recommendations were off for a while. Once I went back to my usual purchases, the recommendations followed.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I suspect that will be the opinion of a lot of people. I made the comment during the beta that there wasn't much that would make people want to upgrade. Adding a few more fixes would have been a good idea.

Offcourse a lot of people will not have the anti-upgrade patch on,they will forced with the update

Buying a few books is what has had the most effect for me. When I bought some books for my son, the recommendations were off for a while. Once I went back to my usual purchases, the recommendations followed.

Well., my GF doesn't have a creditcard, I do, so she bought a lot of romance books with my creditcard at Google Books.
Now when I log on to that account, all the books are Harlequin romance books
No matter what I buy, the recommendations stays all on nurce and doctor romance
In general, not to reply to u, we are always having troubles here in the Netherlands buying books of other origine then epub,it was not possible to buy Kindle readers from Amazon official (since a couple of weeks they have opened a store here so now it is), so the AZW format is almost unknown.
All the webshops are selling only epub,and with the very aggressive selling of the discontinued Sony readers the KEPUB format isn't known well either.
I buyed one book of KOBO once,because it was a Stephen King book and the Kobostore has made a mistake,they put it online 3 weeks before the official releasedate.
Since Sony stopped, the biggest online book seller BOL.com needs an replacement, so they started selling KOBO readers, but only because they are able to read EPUB, Bol doesn't change into Kepub.
When I logon with my account to Kobo by internet, all my previous buyed epubs at Bol.com are available for download in the Kobostore, but only as epub and only online,not on my reader.
So about 200 epubs are now added to the Kobo account,but I can only sync that one Stephen King book.
I can only rate that only Stephen King book
So the whole added function does nothing to me and for the majority of The Netherlands.
I have a discount of 15% on all epubs, so there will never be a second kepub on my device,maybe some converted ones.
There was a survey lately and less then 1% knew that Kobo sells ebooks, and from that 1% only 2% ever bought a book at Kobo. (maybe it was me )
About 90% of the sold readers are Sony (they even had a special version for the Netherlands with only one dictionary on it, no rights so cheap.) that isn't capable of displaying Kepubs, so the format will never be popular here.
People buy epub,because they can read it on both Kobo and Sony, so if Kobo doesn't allow the rating of sideloaded epubs almost no one will ever rate them.
The ratings on BOL.com are not transported to kobo's account,so the function is useless here.
So Kobo has to change the concept of only sync buyed kepubs from the store into also buyed epubs at the merged BOL.com account,or the rating system will never work here.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Nick_1964

Offcourse a lot of people will not have the anti-upgrade patch on,they will forced with the update


Well., my GF doesn't have a creditcard, I do, so she bought a lot of romance books with my creditcard at Google Books.
Now when I log on to that account, all the books are Harlequin romance books
No matter what I buy, the recommendations stays all on nurce and doctor romance

You need to get your GF to open an account at Google Books and just put in your credit card for her to use so her choice of books won't continue to wreck your recommendations.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You need to get your GF to open an account at Google Books and just put in your credit card for her to use so her choice of books won't continue to wreck your recommendations.

stupid me..

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Nick_1964

stupid me..

Besides, doesn't your GF have a bank card? Since your paying, you can just transfer the money to her account and she can pay.

[arspr]

Well I've quickly retested some of the known issues I track (which Davidfor has not mentioned). And they remain more or less unchanged:

PDF issues:

• The performance with some files is abysmal. Link to dedicated thread.
• BUT as also mentioned in that Thread, the crash within 256bit AES protected pdfs has been somehow "fixed". Link to the post in that thread.
• Bad handling of pdfs which contain different page sizes/orientation. It seems the size reference is locked to the first page size, so in the rest of the document you can get cropped pages (in "bigger" pages) or huge white areas (in "smaller" pages). (Link to original thread).

Image rendering in ACCESS (<img> tag handling) is broken as it was in 3.11. (I don't know when this issue started but I'm nearly sure that it worked perfectly fine in older FWs). Link to post with pictures in the FW 3.11 thread.

WebBrowser continues as "broken" as it was in FW 3.11 The three issues I posted here seems to be fully unchanged.

And, of course, all the old traditional known issues remain unchanged.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Besides, doesn't your GF have a bank card? Since your paying, you can just transfer the money to her account and she can pay.

Google books only accepts creditcards, and she earns more money then I but she never asked for a creditcard

[murg]

There's something seriously wrong with the new Desktop.

It's giving me Japanese books in the 'Similar to books you're reading' section.

Needless to say, I've never looked at Japanese books on this Kobo account.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Nick_1964

Google books only accepts creditcards, and she earns more money then I but she never asked for a creditcard

My bank card functions as a debit card or a credit card. Can you get such a bank card from her bank?

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

My bank card functions as a debit card or a credit card. Can you get such a bank card from her bank?

Whoa ... This sort of advice could change the nature of their relationship. If both parties are happy with their current arrangement then so be it.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by murg

There's something seriously wrong with the new Desktop.

It's giving me Japanese books in the 'Similar to books you're reading' section.

Needless to say, I've never looked at Japanese books on this Kobo account.

Anata wa rakkī 1de wa arimasen.

(I'm not sure if I've typed: well aren't you the lucky one - or not,lol!)

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by Nick_1964

Google books only accepts creditcards, and she earns more money then I but she never asked for a creditcard

I believe that it also accepts Gift Cards; when you click on the PRICE of a book (as if to buy it) there is a field where it shows the last 4 digits of your credit card. Click on that and a screen appears where you can select Redeem, Add a new credit card, or Add a Paypal account.

When you select Redeem you can enter a Google Gift Card.

Unfortunately, it would seem that Gift Cards are not available in the Netherlands (See https://support.google.com/googlepla..._topic=3421698 )

[JSWolf]

delete post

[murg]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Anata wa rakkī 1de wa arimasen.

Google thinks that's in Swahili...