Touch Why I Gave Up On 2.3.1

[Danger]

Originally Posted by Anak

I agree to most of the comments Murg made. He sums up quite a lot of basic ("common sense") ereader reading functions that should be easy to use.

I really, really don't like the reading recommendations Kobo makes. It doesn't work (desktop and website).
I've set many books titles to "not interested" but most of those books keep showing up in the recommendation list.
And the option "already read" doesn't seem to work at all. Books don't disappear from the list or don't keep the "already read" status.

My personal favorites:

• Books you own showing up in the recommended list
• Preview book: If you decide to add it to your wishlist for a later purchase and you delete the preview from your library the book is also removed from your wishlist.
• Books that are added to you wishlist are NOT removed from the recommended panel or any other panel they may be in when you added them to your wishlist.
• Deleting a purchased book from your "I'm Reading" puts it in the trash can rather than just removing it from the "I'm Reading" area and leaving it in the "Purchased" section... how dumb is that.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Anak

I really, really don't like the reading recommendations Kobo makes. It doesn't work (desktop and website).
I've set many books titles to "not interested" but most of those books keep showing up in the recommendation list.
And the option "already read" doesn't seem to work at all. Books don't disappear from the list or don't keep the "already read" status.

Are the recommended books or similar to what you are reading even close to what you are interested in? Currently my recommnded list has a couple of Nora Roberts books and a Patricia Wrede book which I at least recognize. The remaining books on my recommendations are for other romance authors plus Charles Dickens and Henry James. The similar to what you are reading shows 4 Susan Mallory, 2 Nora Roberts and 1 Debbie MacComber book -- all are romance novels. This is perhaps understandable since the similar to book is a romance novel -- unfortunately, one I have never read and which has not been on any of the Kobos I've owned.

For someone who reads mostly science fiction and fantasy with some sidelines into humour and mystery, I would love to know just why I get those recommendations.

As you mention, I've clicked on 'not interested' but doesn't seem to help. While the books I click on disappear, the new recommendations are equally useless.

Regards,
David

[volpo]

From what I have seen the Kobo recommendation system is the worst one I've ever come across and the internet is full of them. For whatever reason the majority of books recommended are 'romance' type novels. I've never read/bought one and routinely mark them as not interested. The recommendation engine doesn't seem too concerned with my choices and so I've come to just ignore it. That's Marketing!

Since the recommendation engine seems to be driving the firmware update frequency you'd think that it would actually work better.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Are the recommended books or similar to what you are reading even close to what you are interested in? Currently my recommnded list has a couple of Nora Roberts books and a Patricia Wrede book which I at least recognize. The remaining books on my recommendations are for other romance authors plus Charles Dickens and Henry James. The similar to what you are reading shows 4 Susan Mallory, 2 Nora Roberts and 1 Debbie MacComber book -- all are romance novels. This is perhaps understandable since the similar to book is a romance novel -- unfortunately, one I have never read and which has not been on any of the Kobos I've owned.

For someone who reads mostly science fiction and fantasy with some sidelines into humour and mystery, I would love to know just why I get those recommendations.

As you mention, I've clicked on 'not interested' but doesn't seem to help. While the books I click on disappear, the new recommendations are equally useless.

I have bought about 20 books in the last month. 100% Sci Fi. I just opened the desktop application. Most of the recommendations make sense to me. They are for the authors I bought or looked at other books for. There are only two that it is not obvious from the title or cover why they are there. I clicked "Not interested" for one and it was replaced by "Pride and Prejudice". That was replace by a Ben Bova. It's been a whole week since I saw "50 shades of whatever".

The similar to books make complete sense. I am reading "In the Ocean of the Night" by Gregory Benford (I'm actually reading the epub version but originally started with the kepub version). Book 4 of the series is in the list (I already bought book 2 and book 3 doesn't seem to be available as an ebook). The other books are by Benford, Greg Bear, Peter Hamilton, David Brin and some authors I don't recognise. But the covers and titles make me think they fit.

The system is working better than I thought. It is paying more attention to the books I have bought than to marking others as "Not interested". That makes sense as putting down money is a much surer indicator of interests. The other thing this tells me is that Kobo is not looking at other books on my device. In the past, I have mainly been reading epubs from other sources. My reading patterns have been roughly the same, but that didn't affect the recommendations made.

[murg]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I clicked "Not interested" for one and it was replaced by "Pride and Prejudice". That was replace by a Ben Bova.

I could understand "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", but "Pride and Prejudice"?

[Danger]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The similar to books make complete sense. I am reading "In the Ocean of the Night" by Gregory Benford (I'm actually reading the epub version but originally started with the kepub version). Book 4 of the series is in the list (I already bought book 2 and book 3 doesn't seem to be available as an ebook). The other books are by Benford, Greg Bear, Peter Hamilton, David Brin and some authors I don't recognise. But the covers and titles make me think they fit.

Gregory Benford at Books on Board. If I am reading the Wiki right, Great Sky River is the 3rd book in the "Galactic Centre" Saga listed @ $4.81

Bah... now I have more books to read. Just purchased all 6 books with... oh can I bear it... a shopping cart and I saved $16 without a Kobo Promo code.

PS: don't let the yellow covers fool you on their website. Proper covers show up in ADE when you download them. I thought I was going to have to do a google image search and replace the yellow ones. Glad I don't have to.

PPS: Just checked out Kobo... The books are cheaper at Books on Board.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Danger

Gregory Benford at Books on Board. If I am reading the Wiki right, Great Sky River is the 3rd book in the "Galactic Centre" Saga listed @ $4.81

Bah... now I have more books to read. Just purchased all 6 books with... oh can I bear it... a shopping cart and I saved $16 without a Kobo Promo code.

PS: don't let the yellow covers fool you on their website. Proper covers show up in ADE when you download them. I thought I was going to have to do a google image search and replace the yellow ones. Glad I don't have to.

PPS: Just checked out Kobo... The books are cheaper at Books on Board.

Thanks for the pointer but "That title is not allowed for sale within your country." Maybe I need to move.

The prices I saw listed when I was not logged were similar to those I see from Kobo. But that might change as I think the prices for the books from Gateway was for December only. Actually, Kobo is probably cheaper as it is $AU rather than $US.

My copies did have the yellow covers when I downloaded them. But that was easily fixed.

[Danger]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Thanks for the pointer but "That title is not allowed for sale within your country." Maybe I need to move...

Ahhh yah... uh as far as Books on Board knows... I uh... live in the US, LA to be precise
They had a book that I wanted when I first signed up, using my Canadian address I couldn't buy the book. So I moved to the US just to buy the book, never did move back Had actually forgotten that I live in the US until you mentioned it... Funny thing is all my payments are in Canadian dollars.

[Willa]

Originally Posted by voidoid

Anyway, I decided to try to take it back to 2.1.5 one more time and did it successfully this way. I factory reset it to 1.9.1.3 then side loading to 2.0.4 and then side loading to 2.1.5. Then I chose to sign in to Kobo using the desktop application. It did its thing including forcing an upgrade to 2.3.1. However, before ejecting it and letting it update I simply accessed the .kobo folder on the touch and deleted the 3 update files that are of the same name as the files in the side loaded updates. I then ejected and found that I had 2.1.5 but was signed in to Kobo so was fully functional. The books that I had bought from Kobo I trashed in my Kobo account and use Calibre to manage them.

I am happy once again to have a properly [well, fairly properly] functioning device and I won't be shifting from 2.1.5 in a hurry. My hope is that this story may help others to switch back if they find that 2.1.5 was ok for them and 2.3.1 is too annoying.

How could Kobo have let such a serious bug get through to a release?

Thanks for that - just worked for me and am happily back to 2.1.5

[TechniSol]

Danger,

Ooooooh, you better watch out. Homeland security will have the RCMP politely knocking on your door to conduct you on your way to a free all expense paid water sports, uh water boarding, vacation of indeterminate duration at a lovely seaside Guantanamo resort...