Touch Magazines and Newspapers on the Kobo Touch

[plaid]

Speaking of news/magazines where do you go to make suggestions? There are only a few Canadian Provinces with a newspaper available in Kobo. I'd love something from Manitoba - The Winnipeg Free Press preferably, or the Winnipeg Sun. I went to look for something to trial and there isn't anything interesting to me listed, it looks like the selection has hardly increased since they were finally available. Guess I'll just stick to syncing news via Calibre for now.

[SCION]

It's been about 15 hours and still nothing synced/downloaded. Waiting for two publications to show up.

I signed up for a trial newspaper subscription yesterday and now 18 hours later I'm still awaiting its arrival. Between that and the fact that there are only a total of 37 magazines/newspapers available through the Kobo Books website, and the fact that the Kobo Store on the Kobo Touch seems clueless to newsstand items, I'm to the point of thinking newstand items on my Touch are not going to happen.

I wanted to see if they were readable. The system font and text rendering on the Kobo Touch is so light and thin as to be nearly impossible to read. Books are okay because you can select your font, so I use a thick, bold font. But I'm curious as to whether we can select fonts on newsstand items, and if not, whether the text will be readable.

[Joe563]

I wanted to see if they were readable. The system font and text rendering on the Kobo Touch is so light and thin as to be nearly impossible to read. Books are okay because you can select your font, so I use a thick, bold font. But I'm curious as to whether we can select fonts on newsstand items, and if not, whether the text will be readable.

I have tried three trial subscriptions and for all three all that can be changed are font face and font size. The rest of the text formatting options are 'grayed-out' and can't be selected. When I reported this in the Kobo forum, a Kobo rep said that this was because of publisher restrictions.

Originally Posted by Joe563

I have tried three trial subscriptions and for all three all that can be changed are font face and font size. The rest of the text formatting options are 'grayed-out' and can't be selected. When I reported this in the Kobo forum, a Kobo rep said that this was because of publisher restrictions.

Well the font face and font size are the two most important for me, so I'm happy they are changeable. It looks like I will just have to wait until they fix the download problems before I can read one myself.

[SCION]

This is my last update concerning this in case someone's following along. It's been 22.5 hours and no downloads for the two publications I requested.

Originally Posted by SCION

This is my last update concerning this in case someone's following along. It's been 22.5 hours and no downloads for the two publications I requested.

24 hours in my case and still no newspapers on my Kobo Touch. Both my iPad and iPt4 have yesterday and today's editions on them so it shouldn't be a store issue. I hope they show up before the trial period ends.

[PeterT]

Just wondering.. have you tried a sync through Kobo Desktop? While you can't read the papers in it, it will still download them to the PC. Also not all papers publish every day. The Globe and Mail for instance in Canada is Monday through Saturday.

[SCION]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Just wondering.. have you tried a sync through Kobo Desktop? While you can't read the papers in it, it will still download them to the PC. Also not all papers publish every day. The Globe and Mail for instance in Canada is Monday through Saturday.

The magazines I trialed are weekly and monthly. I assume the most recent issue is what is available for download. That's how it works with Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

No luck syncing with the Kobo desktop app. Nothing downloaded to PC.

[PeterT]

Yes it should work that way (most current). I remember when the Kobo WiFi first has magazines & papers I tried out PC Magazine and got an issue immediately. And recently, when I tried the Toronto Star the same thing; immediate gratification.

[hagerdoc]

Is there a pattern here? Is anyone in the US able to get subscriptions on the Touch?

By the way, I have found that when I sign out of the Desktop App, and then sign back in, it updates everything, books and Newspapers/Magazines. It appears to be downloading the newspapers/magazines to my desktop. However, after that when I sync via USB and the Desktop App (click on sync in the upper right), when it updates the Touch, only books are updated. If I disconnect and try via Wifi, it only updates my "awards, reading life etc." No newspapers/magazines are seen on the Touch. This occurs even after a factory reset of the Touch.

I was told by customer support to expect to hear from Tier 2 support today. I will report back if they are able to make this work.

So I ask again, is anyone in the US able to successfully transfer newspapers/magazines to the Touch?

Originally Posted by SCION

No luck syncing with the Kobo desktop app. Nothing downloaded to PC.

My Kobo desktop app lists my The Washington Post trial subscription but it has a message basically stating I can read it on other devices but apparently not the Desktop app. That is rather odd, I assumed we could read newsstand items on the Desktop app as well as books.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by jswinden

My Kobo desktop app lists my The Washington Post trial subscription but it has a message basically stating I can read it on other devices but apparently not the Desktop app. That is rather odd, I assumed we could read newsstand items on the Desktop app as well as books.

I believe it's always been that way. Papers / Magazines seem to be licensed for ONLY mobile device usage; not for Desktop.

I think the idea was probably that the Papers / Magazines want you to either pay their access fees (New York Times for instance) or view their advertising content, and that allowing people to use Kobo Desktop to read would remove those other income streams.

Originally Posted by PeterT

I believe it's always been that way. Papers / Magazines seem to be licensed for ONLY mobile device usage; not for Desktop.

I think the idea was probably that the Papers / Magazines want you to either pay their access fees (New York Times for instance) or view their advertising content, and that allowing people to use Kobo Desktop to read would remove those other income streams.

The subscription rate for the Kobo version of The Washington Post is about $12/month. That is too much in my opinion. I viewed the newspaper on my Kobo iPad app, which of course has a very large screen, and was not very impressed with it. The iPt4 was way too small to enjoy reading a newspaper. I suspect the 6" Kobo will be too small as well especially since it seems rather slow at accessing hyperlinks. So I think these newsstand items might not be worth the price unless we can view them on the Desktop app too.

If the newspaper doesn't show up today on my Kobo I'll cancel the subscription anyway as there is no reason to pay for something I cannot get to download. Yep it has been over 1.5 days since I subscribed and still no newspaper on the Kobo though I've got three editions on my iOS devices.

[SCION]

To the Kobo reps:

What could be the underlying issue here? I understand things take time to resolve, but we'd like to know why it appears folks in the U.S. are having problems.