Loads of current Kindle defectors need to crown Kobo because the saviour of ebooks and ereaders, however I’m undecided if Kobo is actually as much as the duty of competing with Amazon, as a result of, like standard, it doesn’t seem like they’re placing any effort into it in any respect. Ultimately a number of the deserters can be compelled to move again to Amazon after they get uninterested in Kobo’s apathetic method.
Kobo used to often launch software program updates for his or her ereaders so as to add new options, however over the previous few years the frequency and high quality of Kobo’s updates has critically declined. Now they only launch a few minor “bug repair” updates a 12 months, and once they do add new options they’ve began leaving older fashions out.
The final main software program replace to get launched occurred again in June of 2023, and that was largely only a notetaking replace for older fashions so as to add options that had been added to the Kobo Elipsa 2E when it was launched.
Earlier than that, you must go all the best way again to 2022 once they final improved PDF help by including a zoom lock characteristic. That’s additionally once they lastly added pinch-zooming to vary the font dimension, which nonetheless doesn’t work proper.
Over the weekend I made a decision to do some studying on the Kobo Libra 2, and I couldn’t work out why it wouldn’t activate out of sleep mode when urgent the web page buttons, after which I lastly realized it doesn’t help that characteristic. Kobo added the choice to wake the Kobo Libra Color by urgent the web page buttons practically 6 months in the past, however they nonetheless haven’t added that characteristic to their older fashions, they usually haven’t launched a single software program updates since then.
I additionally assume it’s odd how they formally added Dropbox and Google Drive help to the Kobo Libra Color, however they by no means added that to older fashions just like the Libra 2. Apparently new options are just for new prospects.
My Kobo Libra 2 additionally has an annoying font bug that I’ve been ready for Kobo to repair for the previous 12 months, however I suppose that’s by no means going to occur. I lastly determined to do a manufacturing unit reset to see if that will repair it, however no, the font sort nonetheless retains reverting to a special sort by itself for no obvious motive, however a minimum of now it appears to be restricted to the supplemental font sort after deleting all customized fonts besides one.
I want Kobo would put extra effort into taking Amazon down a number of pegs, however Kobo appears to be content material to be a background singer that few individuals have ever heard of out of doors of hardcore followers. With all of the issues that Amazon does to anger Kindle prospects, you’d assume Kobo would do extra to capitalize on Amazon regularly discovering new methods to alienate prospects, however as an alternative Kobo retains slacking off on software program updates, whereas doing zero promoting and infrequently doing gross sales or promotions, and refusing to launch a brand new black and white Libra to compete with Kindles. It’s a puzzling technique, to say the least. Being owned by Rakuten, you’d assume Kobo would have sufficient sources to place extra effort into taking a much bigger slice out of Amazon’s pie, however they actually don’t appear to care, particularly on the subject of the US market.
