Aura Insensitive / inaccurate touch issues

[gmw]

I am now the proud owner of a brand new Kobo Aura One*. I'm generally pleased, the screen is an obvious step up on my old Sony. Everything loads much faster, though the actual responsiveness of the interface is not as much improved as I thought it would be. But there does seem to be a niggle...

Using touch on various controls seems inconsistent - sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. ... I know the Sony wasn't always perfect in this regard, so maybe I just have fat fingers and should follow Homer Simpson's lead in mashing the keypad with my hand to order a special dialling wand.

The most (but still not completely) consistent problem is experienced in the lower right corner.

If I tap on the page number display at the bottom of the screen, I get the controls appear at the top and bottom of the display. The bottom has the "< Books" button on the left, and then the "<->", "Aa" and "..." buttons on the right.

The "< Books" area seems to work fine. But in the right corner I find that most of the time I have to tap on (or closer to) the "Aa" area to get the "..." menu popup, and on (or closer to) the "<->" area to get the font control up, and on some imaginary area to the left of "<->" to get the page control to come up.

Is this normal, and just something you get used to? Or should I suspect a problem with my device? (I did let it update to the latest firmware 4.5.9587 as one of the first things it did after setting it up.)


* After 7 years of loyal service, by Sony PRS-650 is finally being if not retired then at least reverting to part-time duties.

[nutsheart]

I have the same exact problem. It seems to be a software issue. You just have to live with it, I quess. There is something about it on YouTube, search kobo aura touch screen alignment issue.

[davidfor]

Unfortunately, I see the same on my Aura ONE. It is probably not quite as bad as you are seeing. It is also out a bit when selecting words in the text, so I think it is a calibration problem rather a firmware version problem.

[gmw]

Thanks for confirming that it's not just a dud device.

It's the inconsistency that is puzzling. Sometimes it works when I tap right on the spot, and sometimes (the majority of the times in my tests so far) I have to tap off to the side. (Which makes it seems more likely to be software rather than just calibration.) And in some cases it's has if it doesn't know it has been tapped at all. The total-ignore thing only seems to happen when trying to tap on controls, not with page turns (so far anyway). I haven't tried much in the way of selecting words yet to see how that goes.

Oh, and it is exactly as bad as I am seeing, it's a bit hard for it to be anything else. However, I will admit that the problem probably won't be all that annoying once I get beyond playing with my new toy and get down to actually reading.

[Cinisajoy]

Can you use a stylus to be more exact?

[rashkae]

I tried, the stylus was even worse.

[gmw]

I don't currently have a stylus that works with the Aura One (needs capacitive?). My Sony PRS-650 used infra-red touch, and so its stylus doesn't work - I tried it just to be sure, and my graphics tablet stylus was also a no go.

Despite my joke about Homer's fat fingers, my fingers are quite slender. Also, I've tried doing the touch from various orientations (device rotated 90, 180 and 270 degrees) to check that it's not just picking up on something peculiar to my finger shape or electrical properties. The inconsistent inaccuracy remains consistent with how it was described. To give a more accurate measurement:

If I tap on the "a" of the "Aa" button I most often get the "..." menu pop up. If I tap on the "A" of the "Aa" button then usually I do get the Font control pop up. Tapping between the "A" and "a" of the "Aa" gives me a fairly random selection.

If it was completely consistent it would be less of a problem ... but it does seem to be happening enough that betting on the offset will probably make for the smoothest operation.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by gmw

If I tap on the "a" of the "Aa" button I most often get the "..." menu pop up. If I tap on the "A" of the "Aa" button then usually I do get the Font control pop up. Tapping between the "A" and "a" of the "Aa" gives me a fairly random selection.

If it was completely consistent it would be less of a problem ... but it does seem to be happening enough that betting on the offset will probably make for the smoothest operation.

My Aura One is fairly consistent in that the real tap zone is offset to the left of where it should be. For the Aa, the center is about where the left end of the bar in the A meets the left stroke. I've gotten so used to this, I really don't think about it anymore.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by DNSB

My Aura One is fairly consistent in that the real tap zone is offset to the left of where it should be. For the Aa, the center is about where the left end of the bar in the A meets the left stroke. I've gotten so used to this, I really don't think about it anymore.

I highlighted the bit that - as a software developer - I find particularly interesting. I'd love to be able to discover exactly what makes some problems things that users will happily work around and ignore, from the others that will drive them away in droves. In the case of Kobo (and purchase of devices in general), I suspect some of it is a user's weighing of how much of a pain will it be to return the device vs how easily they can adapt to the problem. But it's not just that.

With my own software I've discovered that what I would consider to be quite serious bugs - if anyone ever got around to telling me about them - the users happily ignore and just find their own ways past them. It is quite a strange phenomenon, and working out the secret could let developers take all sorts of shortcuts.

With this current example (inaccurate touch area), I am put in mind of some joke software that used to get about (there were several variations) where a user would try to click on the button and it would jump out from under the mouse pointer. (Yes, sadly, this is the sort of thing that amuses software developers.)

I have just tried reporting this problem to Kobo (based on my own comment above about the fact that sometimes users just never getting around reporting a problem) ... but after typing in the information they've asked me to phone them. I doubt if I will do that. This is, again, a user deciding which aspect of a problem is the biggest PITA: international calls and trying to explain the situation and possibly having to return the device versus tapping a bit to the left.

[radius]

Originally Posted by gmw

Is this normal, and just something you get used to? Or should I suspect a problem with my device? (I did let it update to the latest firmware 4.5.9587 as one of the first things it did after setting it up.)

I had this exact problem and it was one of the things that led me to return the device after two weeks. Luckily I bought from a store that accepted returns unconditionally.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by radius

I had this exact problem and it was one of the things that led me to return the device after two weeks. Luckily I bought from a store that accepted returns unconditionally.

Hmm ... and it appears from your list of devices that you didn't get a new one, so I can't ask if you managed to find one that worked.

I'm starting to wonder if I should have put up a thread asking if anyone has an Aura One that has reliable and accurate touch.

[rashkae]

The H20, both the original with Infra Red, and the new with Capactitive, have very accurate touch response.

I find the A1 perfectly usable for reading, but very frustrating if trying to select text for annotation. It can also be problematic if trying to to move a zoomed image, often misinterpreting motion as a tap and changing page..

[gmw]

Yes, I've now spent some time reading and its great - the lighting works really well, even the orange tinting at night, which I was dubious about at first (though it is a bit fiddly to get exactly the brightness level I want down at the low end of the adjustment). But, as you say, it is frustrating when you start fiddling with stuff.

"move a zoomed image" - is zooming images something you can do with kepub? Everything I have is currently epub (thanks to 7 years on my Sony) and I didn't tell Calibre to convert to kepub when loading (after noting that people seemed to sometimes have trouble with kepubs I thought it might be better to stay away). Some of my ebooks are reference material and the Scientific American ebooks in particular have very poor image display (and obviously haven't been corrected for OCR errors). So a zoom feature would be convenient.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by gmw

"move a zoomed image" - is zooming images something you can do with kepub? Everything I have is currently epub (thanks to 7 years on my Sony) and I didn't tell Calibre to convert to kepub when loading (after noting that people seemed to sometimes have trouble with kepubs I thought it might be better to stay away). Some of my ebooks are reference material and the Scientific American ebooks in particular have very poor image display (and obviously haven't been corrected for OCR errors). So a zoom feature would be convenient.

In a kepub, you can tap an image and it will be opened in a viewer that supports zoom. They also handle footnotes better - easier to tap a small link and displays the footnote in a popup.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by davidfor

In a kepub, you can tap an image and it will be opened in a viewer that supports zoom. They also handle footnotes better - easier to tap a small link and displays the footnote in a popup.

Thanks for that. Both features sound very convenient. Obviously time I started experimenting with kepub.