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Kobo Vice President replies to issues raised by TeleRead’s Joanna
June 17, 2010 | 11:26 pm
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By Paul Biba
On June 13 our own Joanna published an article entitled Kobo growing pains – user issues and my prescription, in which she detailed some of the problems she had with the new Kobo Reader. Kobo Vice President Michael Tamblyn has just published a response to her article in the comments area. It is only fair that his response get the same “press” as Joanna’s article, so I’m reprinting it, in full, here:
Hi Joanna,
Thanks for these, and for the great comments that follow. Here’s the scoop:
1. Font scaling
Font scaling will be dealt with in a firmware upgrade the week of June 28th. Font issues have been tricky — they are most often caused by hardcoded absolute font sizes in the epub CSS. Doing wholesale overrides of CSS can earn us bad karma with publishers. And while we can easily override some CSS elements (font face, for example, since we have a limited number of fonts on the eReader), the Adobe SDK actually prohibits override of absolute font sizes. (Grrr…) So we have had to do some crafty things behind the scenes to get around that limitation. We have tested the new release of firmware with every file that users have sent us with font resizing issues and it has worked in all cases we’ve tested so far.
2. Title Management
The biggest irritant we heard from lots of users was “I don’t care about *&@^#$# Jane Eyre! Get it out of my Library!” Totally understandable: some people feel it clutters up the Library or makes it harder to find purchased books. (Others love having a reader that is full of books as soon as you plug it in. That’s the way it goes…) There is a short-term fix in the new release while we work on a longer and more complicated one. In the short term, you’ll be able to hide pre-loaded books on the device — get them out of the way so you can look at the other books you’ve added. That definitely won’t address all issues, but it will address the biggest pain point while we work on a wider range of library management features for a subsequent release.
3. Battery Life
This was a software problem rather than a hardware one. Even when the device is in sleep mode, there is a negligible amount of activity on the device. The bug: in some situations, power consumption wasn’t tapering off as much as it should have when the device went into sleep mode. We found the bug and fixed it, so people should be able to get the 8,000 page turns they were expecting.
4. Charging Light
Used to: show nothing until it was charged and then turn red when it was done. (Okayyyy…..)
New release: turns red when it’s charging (so you know something is going on), turns blue when it’s done. Should generally provide a more accurate sense of what’s going on.
There are a bunch of other things rolled up in the update (universal mac builds for PPC+Intel for the Desktop Reader, better indications when the device is off, etc.), but I wanted to flag those four since they’ve been a topic of some discussion here.
Why Has This Taken So Long?
Doing the first firmware upgrade on your first hardware device is not for the faint of heart. We’ve been trying to balance three things: how many fixes/improvements can we get into the release vs. not wanting people to wait too long vs. testing all of the wild and wonderful use cases that customers have given us via phone, email, this forum and others. This week we decided we were fixing enough issues to justify people spending time upgrading the device, especially since it’s a bit of a tricky process, with a few multi-button presses and resets to get the new firmware in there.
Generally, we’ve learned a lot in the 45 days since the eReader released. We’ve learned that running an open platform is both great and daunting — you never know what people are going to try to load onto the device and need to be ready for everything. We have learned that the user community is awesome. People have been great at helping each other overcome issues while this software/firmware update was coming together. Thanks especially to the Calibre folks for doing such a nice job on the Kobo eReader driver!
I’ll have more detail on the release as we lock down the final build. In the meantime, thanks so much for your patience, your candor, well-intentioned beatings, and willingness to stick with us as we get through this latest round of growing pains.
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Comments:
I think that Kobo used some of that seed capital to clone Michael Tamblyn
Brian — Cloning staff members is so ’99-2000 dot-com. Kobo will only do cloning when there is a machine at the grocery store that takes a hair sample and a handful of quarters. And they definitely won’t waste those quarters on me.
Michael, thanks for the reply about the PDFs, knowing that something will eventually be done is a good thing, but it still doesn’t address all the other issues with the Kobo. Text is an open source format, why can we not have that on the Kobo? The other ereaders that use the Netronix Inc. hardware seem to have no problem with it, and there are literally millions of documents/ebooks available in .txt format.
Thanks again,
Dan
Michael, I really want to love the Kobo — you guys figured out a nice set of features and a great price point that lets me take a reader to the beach or risk dropping it in the tub.
I understand the open platform challenges of trying to adequately display any .epub or .pdf or calibre output that anyone might throw at the device.
But what I don’t get, and what is holding me back from embracing this ereader concept fully, is why the two books I just purchased today from Kobobooks have fonts that don’t scale. Personally, I’m going to stop risking my money by purchasing books I can’t read without a magnifying glass, for approximately the same price as hardcover or trade paperback prices (after iRewards discount).
How can it be taking you guys so long to provide an upgrade, even if it’s a Kobo desktop converter/filter, to address this font size issue, for the books YOU SELL TO US AT FULL PRICE.
I don’t even care if they scale, just make them default to medium instead of something smaller than smallest.
Thinking forward to organizing my library:
1. First off, don’t rush to put too much untested structure into the device itself. Maybe give us options to organize on our laptops first — A reader can always recopy a book that has been “lost on the reader” from the laptop and get it into “I’m Reading” again that way.
2. I’d like the ability to organize books in a hierarchy of folders, or some equivalent rich structure of groups within groups.
3. In addition, I’d like a way of marking books I want to read soon — maybe like an Playlist on iTunes
4. Playlists would also let me organize other threads through my collection
5. It would be great if I could download another reader’s playlist — without the actual books perhaps — and read the list they recommend in the order they recommend it. If I already have the book on my reader, then it would load when I click. If not, it would be great if my reader or desktop Kobo software took me to the book on Kobobooks so I could purchase it. This playlist idea would be great for book clubs, for reading lists for courses or from experts whose guidance I might follow, or even for keeping prolific authors series or book history straight. So if I want to read all of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch books, and have just discovered him, I go to Kobobooks author page, download his whole list of books (in order) or his list of Bosch books only (in order) and click on them to find out if I have some of them, and buy the others.
6. It would also be great, but very difficult perhaps, if you had a way to keep a reader’s history, that is, a list of books started and a list of books completed, maybe with a way of putting some annotation in there (using the desktop Kobo software). If I could see this list on the reader, it would be easier to check what I’ve already read while at libraries and bookstores. (The way you’ve set up Kobobooks keeps me from duplicating a purchase, which is great.)
Overall, I’m really happy and tell everyone to buy this device. I’m just a little frustrated by the font scaling, which for me personally, is getting worse — it’s affecting the books I’ve actually paid big bucks for.
Thanks for listening. I’m delighted to follow your ideas here, or feel free to email me at vicd@uwaterloo.ca if you like.
Vic
I think Michael is the victim of Adobe. Today, if you want DRM you have two choices: iBooks or Adobe Adept. The former locks you to one reader, while the latter locks you to one renderer. Many readers use Adobe Adept and hence are locked to the renderer from Adobe. That happens to be the worst one I have seen so far. Browsers can scale fonts, as well as several other e-readers. Adobe has a quasi monopoly in the DRM-area and they are clearly abusing it. It makes me think of the way M$ stiffled the web with IE6
It is time for e-readers to start supporting the PKI-based encryption scheme that is proposed in the ePub standard. Bookshops can then add a certificate to the accounts of their customers, which they can load in their e-reader. This way people always use the reader they prefer and shop anywhere.
Another day, still no Kobo update. Has anyone actually received an “Early Access” Invitation???
I applaud your organization’s support of a solid open format in the form of epub. But I wonder would you ever consider going further and releasing some tools and specifications to allow for the creation of custom third party firmware? This would allow members of the open source community to experiment with new features which if successful (and not legally problematic) could be backported into official releases. You would also have the advantage of being able to utilize a plethora of open source software like FBreader and OpenInkpot. Also you wouldn’t be as reliant on Adobe who seem to be the prime suspects in the text resizing glitch. Furthermore an incredibly open nature would do more to set the Kobo apart from other ereaders in the marketplace. What do you think Michael?
Dan Payment: got my early access invite yesterday, worked great. Check the discussions on the forums at http://www.mobileread.com
Anthony, I finally got my invitation yesterday, and as you say, it worked great. It seems to have resolved most of my issues with epubs, but I haven’t tried PDFs yet. I will note though that Kobo has been very careful about answering any questions regarding other suggestions made in this and other forums. Alfred’s suggestion above is one good example, and I go back to my harping on adding text as an open source format. Also, since epub is just compressed HTML with a stylesheet, why no plain ordinary HTML.
I’m happy that my Kobo is finally working properly at least in part until I confirm the PDF issue, and I know that at the time I bought it, it was the lowest price on the market, but with all the price reductions lately, Kobo is going to have to work hard to maintain a market share. Since the kindle and the nook have more to offer in terms of hardware, the price difference now is not so great. For Kobo to remain competitive, they’re going to have to make their ereader more attractive by offering more features. It’s an okay ereader right now, but it has the potential to be a great ereader, but only if they listen to us users and make some of the improvements we suggest.
Dan — just to set some expectations on PDF: we didn’t touch PDF rendering/reflow in this update. It’s a much bigger piece of work, so we focused on getting epub resizing and battery life improved on this release and will now hunker down to see what we can do for PDF display (a tricky proposition at the best of times…)
Great to hear your upgrade went well. And keep beating the .txt drum — I’m all for it!
Sincerely,
Michael Tamblyn – EVP Content, Sales & Merchandising – Kobo
Thanks for the encouragement Michael, I have literally thousands of .txt stories and books that I’d love to be able to read on my Kobo, and to have to replace them with either epub or PDF would be a real pain, and probably incredibly expensive. As for trying to convert them, I know there are several bulk conversion applications out there, but the ones I’ve used to date all seem to miss some formatting commands, add extra spaces or linefeeds, etc., sometimes making the output unreadable.
I look forward eagerly to the next Kobo firmware update.
Thanks again,
Dan
is there an option to “hide” the free books out of the I’m Reading area or is something on the radar? I’m using version 1.8.3
I have had a problem with my kobo touch 2 weeks after I received it. I received it in June and by July 1st it asked me to reset it again. It would not reset it so I called the help line. The woman was very nice and courteous. She walked me through all the steps to no avail. We were only 3 or 4 days past the return date at the store so she said if they won’t take it back call again and they would give me an address to return it to get fixed. Well, the store would not take it back so I called to get an address. ( In their defense I was away and called when I got home on Oct 3rd).
Since Oct 3rd I have at least 10 e-mails since and still no address to get it fixed. I have 2 incident numbers which no one will take to check on where the issue stands. They say they will expedite the matter but I only get an answer back saying it will be addressed and I will hear from them in 24 hours but I never do. I called the number and most of the time I can’t get through.
My daughter bought me this for my birthday and she feels embarrassed that nothing has been done to fix it. I really liked it the 2 weeks I had it but I certainly don’t feel I have been treated well. All of this for an address to get something fixed. Someone at Kobo or Chapters should be embarrassed instead of my daughter. I don’t think it is something I would recommed to anyone. I know these things happen but it is the service that was so horrendous.
Sincerely
Wanda Sabean