New Home Screen vs Old Home Screen

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by peaceridge

Another thread said we did not lose OverDrive, I'm confused - still on old version and not sure about the new.

I think Issy is talking about having a tile on the homescreen linking directly to an overdrive search.

I'm on the latest firmware, 4.4.9298 and overdrive support is still there in settings and it works.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by peaceridge

Another thread said we did not lose OverDrive, I'm confused - still on old version and not sure about the new.

I meant that I personally have lost access to OverDrive, since I'm unwilling to sync my device and risk the new screen.

Sorry for the confusion.

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

That bad web form is actually so bad that it doesn't even have a submit button, only a "call us" button.

This also what I initially saw each time I went onto Kobo's website to try and leave feedback about the new home screen.

However, I just went onto their website and their was a simple form with which one could anonymously submit feedback. It seemed to work fine. Perhaps they were just experiencing difficulties with their webpage before.

On another note, the newest version of the new home screen is not as horrible as I first thought it was. I still prefer the old one, but I could learn to live with the new one without too much difficulty. Just wish the covers of recommended books wouldn't be displayed on the screen unless I specifically request it.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

Just wish the covers of recommended books wouldn't be displayed on the screen unless I specifically request it.

That's odd. I've updated 3 Kobos to fw v4.4.9298 so far and I no longer see Recommended book covers on any of them, so far. The mid-right position (where Recommendations appeared in the previous firmware) is now showing a selection of books from the last Collection I opened. Every cover I can see on the new Home screen is for a sideloaded book actually present on the device.

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

That's odd. I've updated 3 Kobos to fw v4.4.9298 so far and I no longer see Recommended book covers on any of them, so far. The mid-right position (where Recommendations appeared in the previous firmware) is now showing a selection of books from the last Collection I opened. Every cover I can see on the new Home screen is for a sideloaded book actually present on the device.

I initially installed the newest firmware on my original Aura. In the lower right hand corner, there was initially a tile with books I had downloaded, but hadn't yet read. Later, when I visited the home screen, it had changed.

It went through a variety of changes. I forget the exact wording, but it was things like "Recommended for you", "Top picks", "Great reads for under $5"...

The strange thing was that I had sideloaded the update. I hadn't connected the Kobo to either the internet or my Kobo desktop app. And yet it was displaying book covers which I had never clicked on or downloaded.

I have since rolled back to an earlier firmware. Not because of the home screen this time, but because the new firmware did not seem to like the Chinese font which I had previously been using and my Aura had become very unstable when opening Chinese epubs even when I tried sideloading other Chinese fonts.

Since rolling back to the old firmware, everything is good again, and I have my old screen back.

[graycyn]

I just updated my Kobos to the latest firmware by setting my affiliate to bestbuyca. Started with the Aura HD. Figured I could compare home screens, see which I liked best.

I rather like the new home screen! It feels less cluttered and cleaner to me, so I have gone ahead with the update on the KA1.

So far what I'm seeing on the KA1 is four of my books at the top, a tile for My Books and then a tile for Wishlist.

At the bottom are two sections of text: Browse for books to buy, borrow or preview and Discover books related to the ones you are reading. I assume the latter is recommended books, but it's just text, not book covers and it appears I'd have to click on it to actually SEE recommendations. I can live with that.

The recommendations text seems to randomly switch out with other text, at the moment it's a link to the user guide for the KA1. After opening the user guide, it's switched to suggesting I browse fiction, romance, biography and more categories.

I don't see any way to dismiss the text at the bottom, but it's really not bugging me.

On my Aura HD, instead of the Wishlist tile, I got a random author tile. It'd be nice if they allowed us to pick which we'd prefer to see. More customization would be nice...

For instance, rather than an AUTHOR tile, would be cool to have a SERIES tile! I like the Wishlist tile, will serve a good reminder for books I want to put library holds on or buy.

Anyway, my KA1 feels faster and more responsive to touch after the update, so I plan to live with the new homescreen. Besides, on the KA1, I wouldn't want to avoid turning on wifi, the library book feature is too nice.


Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Stevex]

I posted this on the 9284 firmware thread but maybe it belongs better here. I'll be very grateful for any pointers

So I must bite the bullet and move to the new home screen.
Can I customise it at all?
E.g at the bottom it has Find your next great read -and- Browse...
I never go online with the Kobo, can I get rid of these
On the left it has current book -and-My Books - these are ok
At the right it has Top New Releases -and- one author apparently randomly chosen from what I have on the device. Both of these are pointless for me.
Can someone point me to instructions how to fix this, if possible?
Thanks a lot...

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Stevex

I posted this on the 9284 firmware thread but maybe it belongs better here. I'll be very grateful for any pointers

So I must bite the bullet and move to the new home screen.
Can I customise it at all?
E.g at the bottom it has Find your next great read -and- Browse...
I never go online with the Kobo, can I get rid of these
On the left it has current book -and-My Books - these are ok
At the right it has Top New Releases -and- one author apparently randomly chosen from what I have on the device. Both of these are pointless for me.
Can someone point me to instructions how to fix this, if possible?
Thanks a lot...

I don't have any inside knowledge but based on what I've actually seen so far on my own devices

• If you've opened enough books the whole top row will be your 4 most recently read books. So to that extent the top right & left could be said to be "customisable".
• Similarly, the middle right area shows 3 covers from the last Collection I opened a book from (My Books - Collections tab - select a Collection - open a book). So, again, it could be said to be "customisable".

Middle left always seems to be 'My Books'. The 3 covers displayed may be the 3 most recently added but I'm not too sure about that until I've loaded some new books.

The bottom right (text-only) section seems to change regularly, whether it's random or a fixed cycle I don't know.

The bottom left (text-only) always seems to be 'Browse Kobo'. As it's not particularly large or intrusive I'll live with it and never press it.

[Question Mark]

Decided to bite the bullet and update my KA1. And for all my previous whining, I don't mind the new home screen much at all. Quite easy to live with.

Have tried putting it to sleep and powering it off and on several times to see what would happen to the home screen. The middle right section which had been showing me various selections of unsolicited book covers on my Aura, now consistently just shows an author whose books I have loaded onto the device.

I wonder if the reason the new home screen on my Aura behaved differently than that on my KA1 is because I had so few books on it and they were all on an external micro SD card...

Regardless, am happy that I updated as the new firmware seems more responsive and there don't seem to be any difficulties with Chinese fonts and Chinese epubs on my KA1 unlike when I tried the new firmware on my Aura. Strange.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

Regardless, am happy that I updated as the new firmware seems more responsive and there don't seem to be any difficulties with Chinese fonts and Chinese epubs on my KA1 unlike when I tried the new firmware on my Aura. Strange.

I think the problem is that the newer firmware versions use more RAM, and the old devices don't have enough left for the very large fonts. Newer devices like H2O and Aura One have more RAM. The problems show up with the CJK fonts simply because they tend to be much larger than Latin fonts.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by graycyn

I just updated my Kobos to the latest firmware by setting my affiliate to bestbuyca. Started with the Aura HD. Figured I could compare home screens, see which I liked best.

Now imagine you never connect with wifi (I find it the most useless addon to an ereader by date, personally)

So far what I'm seeing on the KA1 is four of my books at the top, a tile for My Books and then a tile for Wishlist.

I don't have a wishlist (no internet connection) and My Books will show a few of the hundreds I have on the device and thus won't most likely never show what I want to read next. Two of the 3 tiles are useless here.

At the bottom are two sections of text: Browse for books to buy, borrow or preview and Discover books related to the ones you are reading. I assume the latter is recommended books, but it's just text, not book covers and it appears I'd have to click on it to actually SEE recommendations. I can live with that.

I don't ever buy books using the reader (again, no internet and I simply don't like the horribly slow touchscreen to do anything but select books and change pages and occasionally highlight), I don't borrow (don't even where from) and I don't connect to the site so my reader doesn't know what books are related to the ones I'm currently reading.

So, that bottom row is completely 100% useless to me.

In short, there's only one thing I want to see on my homescreen and that's the books I am currently reading and books I've recently read. All other information is useless to me and only takes space.

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

I think the problem is that the newer firmware versions use more RAM, and the old devices don't have enough left for the very large fonts. Newer devices like H2O and Aura One have more RAM. The problems show up with the CJK fonts simply because they tend to be much larger than Latin fonts.

Thanks. Knew there had to be some kind of an explanation. Fortunately, the SimHei font seems to work well with the old firmware on my Aura whereas I use the the MS YaHei font on my KA1.

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Now imagine you never connect with wifi (I find it the most useless addon to an ereader by date, personally)


I don't have a wishlist (no internet connection) and My Books will show a few of the hundreds I have on the device and thus won't most likely never show what I want to read next. Two of the 3 tiles are useless here.


I don't ever buy books using the reader (again, no internet and I simply don't like the horribly slow touchscreen to do anything but select books and change pages and occasionally highlight), I don't borrow (don't even where from) and I don't connect to the site so my reader doesn't know what books are related to the ones I'm currently reading.

So, that bottom row is completely 100% useless to me.

In short, there's only one thing I want to see on my homescreen and that's the books I am currently reading and books I've recently read. All other information is useless to me and only takes space.

If you never connect with wifi, you won't face an upgrade, hence no new homescreen to ever worry you. I left wifi off on my Kobo Aura HD for almost 3 years after the very first upgrade or two. All worked as I liked, no need to upgrade! I did upgrade it to new firmware this year, but I could've happily gone on without doing so.

I spend a lot of time reading, visits to the homescreen are generally brief enough.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[dordale]

Originally Posted by graycyn

If you never connect with wifi, you won't face an upgrade, hence no new homescreen to ever worry you. I left wifi off on my Kobo Aura HD for almost 3 years after the very first upgrade or two. All worked as I liked, no need to upgrade! I did upgrade it to new firmware this year, but I could've happily gone on without doing so.

I spend a lot of time reading, visits to the homescreen are generally brief enough.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

My Kobo usage is very similar to Sweetpea's. I never connect via WiFi and have a lot of side loaded books on my reader. As with Sweetpea, I would find the bottom half of the new home screen completely useless.

As you say, as long as I don't update my Kobo I won't have to deal with the new home screen at all. But it is a trade off. I would like some of the fixes/improvements that come with the new firmware--such as correct reading stats. I was hoping that Kobo would leave the code for the old home screen in the file, so that I could use GeoffR's patch to enable it. That way I could "have my cake and eat it too". But alas, that doesn't appear to be the case.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by dordale

My Kobo usage is very similar to Sweetpea's. I never connect via WiFi and have a lot of side loaded books on my reader. As with Sweetpea, I would find the bottom half of the new home screen completely useless.

As you say, as long as I don't update my Kobo I won't have to deal with the new home screen at all. But it is a trade off. I would like some of the fixes/improvements that come with the new firmware--such as correct reading stats. I was hoping that Kobo would leave the code for the old home screen in the file, so that I could use GeoffR's patch to enable it. That way I could "have my cake and eat it too". But alas, that doesn't appear to be the case.

This is my situation as well. The only thing I'll miss is the search not working with certain books (that's assuming they ever get it fixed), but if I can figure out which lower version of the firmware where it was working, I'll go back to that.

Not that I've ever been a fan of Kobo's jumbled homescreen, it definitely could use a redesign, but I really don't see putting up with half of my screen being totally useless to me as a usable alternative.