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03-12-2018, 08:31 PM | #1 |
Enthusiast
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Device: Kobo Glo HD
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Every firmware update makes the user experience worse, instead of better
This is my personal opinion, of course. I don't know if this is or not, if it is please tell me so I can delete this. But, after owning a Kobo Glo HD for almost a year, I felt the need to vent here.
Instead of improving the user experience with each new update, the Kobo developers are making it worse with every update. In order to understand this, you only have to know that I am still using a heavily-patched version of the 3.15 firmware, which was released three years ago because I find it waaay better than the current versions. With the help of some screenshots of my device, I want to show you why. This is the homescreen of my Kobo Glo HD as I like it: As you can see, this is amazing. Everything is perfectly organized. All the games, the browser, the last used books, a preview of my last Pocket article are at the reach of a single touch (some icons are not the original ones, because I made them myself, but they don't affect the overall experience of the original firmware). Advertising is nearly nonexistent, just one or two black tiles that appear after a sync and can be easily removed. If I want to play a bit of chess at the bus station, there it is, just with a tap on its tile. And the same if I have a wifi connection and want to read the newspaper on an e-ink screen. Please note that I have a different keyboard of that which you are using on new firmwares. It fills the screen and, although the distribution of the keys is a bit weird, I find it waaay better than the new one. It responds better to keypresses and it is, in my opinion, more visually appealing. But what happens if you buy a Kobo now and quickly update the firmware? You will be greeted by this: The 50% of your screen will be filled with non-removable ads telling you to buy things from Kobo. Not only have tiles dissapeared, you cannot even remove things from your screen! The top half of the screen will show your last four reads. Period. There's nothing you can do about it. Forget about pinning the browser to your homescreen -it will be buried in a menu that you can access after three or four taps. Forget about knowing how many notes one of your books has without a long press on its cover. Even to access your own library, you will have to use a menu, and when you go to the library, instead of the three rows of four books that you see on the old homescreen (look at the picture below), you will see an annoying quantity of only eight books per page. And if you want to play chess, forget it, the chess app has dissapeared and will never come back. If you want to browse the web, the web browser will be slower and will react in some weird ways to your taps, which makes it almost useless for more than a quick visit to a Wikipedia page (I'm not sure if this was a problem only on my Kobo or if this affects other people, I suspect the latter). So, after three years of updates, what has Kobo improved? Maybe the ereader turns pages some miliseconds faster. Maybe pictures are drawn better on the screen. And now Kobo will make more money selling ebooks after filling half our screens with advertising. At first sight, nothing more. Sure, some people here will say that I'm a cinic and they now have X feature that they really like. But for me, it is better to stick to a three-year-old software version. And that tells a lot. Sure, what I'm using isn't perfect. The browser, for example, does not remember cookies (BTW in new versions it still doesn't). But in terms of functionality it is vastly superior. So I'll stick with it hoping that Kobo will, at least give the option to retain some of its funcionality with patches on future updates. Of course, that doesn't mean that Kobo is a terrible company, in fact they offer the best hardware. But that doesn't mean that they are perfect either. Thanks for reading, and sorry for the long rambling. I just felt that I needed to write this so maybe someone at Kobo could read it. Have a nice day! Last edited by nicolas161; 03-12-2018 at 09:25 PM. Reason: Added a word |
03-12-2018, 08:48 PM | #2 |
Non-Techy
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Recommendations Can be Turned OFF in Settings.
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03-12-2018, 08:58 PM | #3 | ||||
Addict
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Quote:
If you use your reader more as a general-purpose tablet-type thing (which it sounds like you do, with the browser and chess and whatnot) then I can see finding the newer interface annoying. Quote:
The two small parts at the bottom remain as-is, but it's a lot less that 50% of your screen. Quote:
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More importantly those older firmwares were sluggish with lots of books; that's been fixed so there's no real performance difference whether you have 50 or 5000 books. |
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03-12-2018, 09:16 PM | #4 |
Non-Techy
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Location: WV---USA
Device: Samsung Cell Phone & Amazon Fires & Kobo eReaders
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NOT TRUE! It Shows the Collection of the eBooks you Currently are reading.... Easy to find that Next Read.
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03-12-2018, 09:59 PM | #5 |
Wizard
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Join Date: Aug 2007
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Device: Nook Simple Touch, Kobo Glo HD, Kobo Clara HD, Kindle 4
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My Kobo Glo HD, running 4.7.10413, has a Home page that lists the last 4 books I've been reading along the top, the middle row has the last 3 books bought/sideloaded on the left, and 3 books from a collection on the right, and a half-size row with shop Kobo on the left and on the right, it seems to cycle between a link to My Collections, My Articles, Recommended, Wishlist, Activity and Help. I don't know if I ever had firmware with games installed, but I don't remember playing any. If anything, I wish that the My Books would come up faster, but I assume that it's an issue with the number of books I have installed on it.
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03-13-2018, 02:04 AM | #6 | |
eReader Wrangler
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Quote:
My other Touch is at 4.5.9587 and it looks almost exactly like your example. No chess. Uglier. I also noticed that, when I had the newer version of software on the Touch that now has 3.3.1, it seemed more sluggish. I didn't test it long enough to really tell without a doubt, but the 3.3.1 version feels more responsive to me. So, for what it's worth, there's at least one person who agrees with your assessment. I think the older firmware's front-end was better. |
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03-13-2018, 10:52 AM | #7 |
Gentleman and scholar
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Device: Clara HD; Nook ST w/Glowlight, (2015) Glowlight Plus, Paperwhite 3
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I agree I liked the look of the old software better. Particularly the home screen. But also, the bars now look too cluttered with repetitive stuff. The hamburger button on the top left has a link to home. Do we also need <Home on the bottom left? The <-> button has a link to table of contents. Right next to the <-> button there is now a table of contents button. There's others. That's just what I remember off the top of my head.
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03-13-2018, 11:54 AM | #8 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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Regarding the TOC button/icon ... personally I like that they've made it more accessible. When I used Sony devices it used to be a pain to have to drill down into the menus to reach it. |
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03-13-2018, 01:26 PM | #9 | ||
Gentleman and scholar
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Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Space City, Texas
Device: Clara HD; Nook ST w/Glowlight, (2015) Glowlight Plus, Paperwhite 3
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Quote:
I wonder how often that is used? Quote:
To my larger point, do you agree the top and bottom bars are too cluttered? |
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03-13-2018, 01:28 PM | #10 |
Gentleman and scholar
Posts: 10,994
Karma: 108312789
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Space City, Texas
Device: Clara HD; Nook ST w/Glowlight, (2015) Glowlight Plus, Paperwhite 3
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03-13-2018, 03:10 PM | #11 | ||
Grand Sorcerer
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: UK
Device: Kobo: KA1, ClaraHD, Forma, Libra2, Clara2E. PocketBook: TouchHD3
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Quote:
As to how useful this is ... I'm not sure Quote:
- 'Yes' to a Night-mode toggle (if that option ever makes it out of beta) - 'No' to a fast link to the book store |
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03-13-2018, 04:05 PM | #12 |
Resident Curmudgeon
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One thing that has improved along the way is the ePub reading experience.
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03-13-2018, 04:50 PM | #13 | |
Gentleman and scholar
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Location: Space City, Texas
Device: Clara HD; Nook ST w/Glowlight, (2015) Glowlight Plus, Paperwhite 3
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Quote:
(Edit: I just started a new book and it says Books. I guess I connect my Kobo to Calibre so often, it always switches back to Home when I disconnect the Kobo and I never noticed the difference.) Last edited by ZodWallop; 03-13-2018 at 04:52 PM. |
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03-14-2018, 12:00 AM | #14 |
Wizard
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Device: More than I need, but not as many as I would like.
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I have one Kobo with very old firmware and the old homescreen. I have another with newer firmware and the new homescreen. I like them both.
Initially, I was very vocal in my dislike for the new homescreen, but I quickly made peace with it and am now quite comfortable with it. I actually spend so little time on the homescreen that it really doesn't matter too much what is on it. |
03-14-2018, 06:12 AM | #15 | |
eReader Wrangler
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