Every firmware update makes the user experience worse, instead of better

[nicolas161]

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!

[Barbara1955]

Recommendations Can be Turned OFF in Settings.

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by nicolas161

This is the homescreen of my Kobo Glo HD as I like it:
As you can see, this is amazing.

To each his own, I guess; that's cluttered with a ton of stuff not related to reading. I wouldn't want it on my homescreen.

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.

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.

The top row turns into your last 4 books; the bottom “Recommended” quickly turns into “Favorites” (when you shut off recommendations), showing in-progress/favorite collections of my own books.

The two small parts at the bottom remain as-is, but it's a lot less that 50% of your screen.

The top half of the screen will show your last four reads. Period. There's nothing you can do about it.

You can use “My Books” as your main interface and sort by “Date Added” if you want to see more. But that doesn’t help if you want chess/browser/etc as well.

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.

Yep. And I spend about 200 times as much time reading books as I do on the home screen, so those are pretty big wins for me.

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.

[Barbara1955]

NOT TRUE! It Shows the Collection of the eBooks you Currently are reading.... Easy to find that Next Read.

[bgalbrecht]

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.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by nicolas161

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!

I agree with you. I'm not a heavy Kobo user, but I've got two Kobo Touches set up. The one I plan on using has the WiFi turned off because I don't want it to update past 3.3.1 -- which looks almost exactly like your 3.15. I chose 3.3.1 because (as I understood it) this was the oldest version that would allow the Full Screen hack (which I like and wanted). I also wanted chess.

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.

[ZodWallop]

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.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

The hamburger button on the top left has a link to home. Do we also need <Home on the bottom left?

The bottom left isn't always 'Home', though. It's more of a 'where-have-I-just-come-from' option or, put more simply, a 'Back' option.

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.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

The bottom left isn't always 'Home', though. It's more of a 'where-have-I-just-come-from' option or, put more simply, a 'Back' option.

I'm not sure what action is needed to change that bottom left button. I just read fiction front to back and have never seen it change. I'm not saying I don't believe you. Just saying I didn't know it ever did anything else.

I wonder how often that is used?

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.

If table of contents were buried far down in the menus, I could see that. But as it is already available by touching the <-> button, is it really that useful? Do we need two buttons to save one touch?

To my larger point, do you agree the top and bottom bars are too cluttered?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Barbara1955

Recommendations Can be Turned OFF in Settings.

Where and how? I tried looking, but didn't see it.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I'm not sure what action is needed to change that bottom left button. I just read fiction front to back and have never seen it change. I'm not saying I don't believe you. Just saying I didn't know it ever did anything else.

It's easy to trigger a change. If you open a book from the 'My Books' booklist then bottom left will be 'Books', not 'Home'. Similarly if you open a book from one of your Collection lists bottom left will be 'Collection'. If opened from a booklist created by a Search, bottom left is 'Search'.

As to how useful this is ... I'm not sure

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

To my larger point, do you agree the top and bottom bars are too cluttered?

I don't really have a strong aesthetic opinion on this. I think I'd be OK if the whole bottom menu was stuffed with icons as long as they were icons I might want to use, e.g.
- 'Yes' to a Night-mode toggle (if that option ever makes it out of beta)
- 'No' to a fast link to the book store

[JSWolf]

One thing that has improved along the way is the ePub reading experience.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

It's easy to trigger a change. If you open a book from the 'My Books' booklist then bottom left will be 'Books', not 'Home'. Similarly if you open a book from one of your Collection lists bottom left will be 'Collection'. If opened from a booklist created by a Search, bottom left is 'Search'.

As to how useful this is ... I'm not sure

I tend to have an idea of the next book I'm going to read when I finish my current book. I always find that next book using search. Yet the button reads Home.

(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.)

[Question Mark]

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.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

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.

It always bothered me when I had my Kobo Glo that one of my firmware upgrades just took away Chess from the Menu. What really irritated about it is that, as long as I loaded it every now and then (didn't let it roll off my home page) it was still there and I could still play it. But I let it roll off and it was gone. They decided to hide it while leaving it somewhere in the firmware. Never could quite figure that out, why keep you from using something that was still there?