Touch Kobo Touch Firmware 2.0

[kaikara]

Originally Posted by taming

I have not had any problems transferring books using Calibre.

Same here. mine has been fine.

[John F]

I guess it was a random factory reset. after 2.0 reinstalled, and I was able to sideload using Calibre.

[MisterMax]

Updated Kobo touch to 2.0 firmware yesterday, everything went right.
I really appreciate the new shelvesfunctionality , the font tuning, and the general layout of the updated gui

The only drawback is that now page turns in sideloaded epubs are much slower

I really hope that the page turn speed issue could be fixed in future update

PS:
I'm a software developer too... Kudos to the dev. team for creating a nice device like the Kobo Touch, and continue to fix bugs and implement new feature, this make for a big difference between Kobo and other ereader.
I just bought a Kobo last week, as a gift for my girlfriend, and I'm thinking about buying another one for me .

Just to be clear, the new shelves functionality (and the partial page refresh) made the difference for me. 2 days ago I was trying to choose between a Kobo Touch and a Sony PRS-T1... but the new firmware (let me say it again: shelves), is guarantying you a new customer

[the.Mtn.Man]

Originally Posted by murg

A possible explanation as to why the clock has been buried is that when it is on the reading page, it consumes resources to be able to update the reading page when the minute changes. On a buried page, it requires less resources.

They had that problem licked in the previous firmware, though: the clock would only display for about ten seconds then it would collapse into an icon that had to be tapped if you wanted to display the time again (it's the same way now, only it's less accessible than previously). Like I said earlier, the implementation was perfect, and I have no idea why they felt the need to change it.

[kiwipippa]

Originally Posted by Jaden

Encountered another bug:

Read Book A, went to sleep mode, no cover but a page showing "A" and "epub".

Went to check and tried book B. Sleep mode now showed the cover of Book A.

Again back to selection, selected book A, sleep mode showed cover of book B.

Now it seems to be okay, but I'm only reading book A at the moment...

This is happening consistently to my son who is reading two books - the cover on sleep is a book behind. Progress bar however is for the current book.

I'm only reading one book so I haven't noticed the problem.

[Sound]

My upgrade went without a hitch as well.

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

They had that problem licked in the previous firmware, though: the clock would only display for about ten seconds then it would collapse into an icon that had to be tapped if you wanted to display the time again (it's the same way now, only it's less accessible than previously). Like I said earlier, the implementation was perfect, and I have no idea why they felt the need to change it.

An actual explanation was provided here. So no need to guess why.

[Jeff1192]

No problem with the install here. MUCH improved device now. Without shelves I was limiting how many books I put on my KT because it was annoying trying to page through book after book. Much better layout of things as well.

As for the complaints about slower page turns, I've noticed it with mine as well....but nothing I can't live with, especially with all the other improvements.

Nicely done Kobo!

[Urdu]

Yesterday I've installed the new firmware. A mysterious process. I use a Mac with USB and the desktop software just synced but did not upgrade my KoboTouch. After my seventh try all of a sudden without any message my KT was updated.
After signing out and in (losing all your reading and shortlist settings!) all initial problems like creating shelves etc. seemed solved. My KT'a memory is still 70% free and I use no plugin's or memory cards. This is my take on on the new firmware after playing with it for a day:

Pro:
1. The amazing dictionary pop-up!
2. The custom book shelves
3. The improved font and picture quality
4. Showing a book's info, synopsis and rating
5. The improved speed while searching the database or within a book
6. Again a new dictionary: French

Contra:
1. The changed shortlist. Why change a good thing? Could you please leave the shortlist as it was, in use and visible on the homepage?
2. The single book view in the library is gone. It's only available in the book menu. Could the (greatly improved) single view be integrated in the view options again?
3. The amazing dictionary pop-up is only available in English. It would be nice to chance the language in this pop-up window. All definitions are already there.
4. The tedious process of adding books to shelves. Each time after adding some books using the search option you go back to the bookshelves page. So you have to start the whole process again to add new books via search. Why not stay on the same page after adding a book?
5. In the main library it's only visible if a book is part of the shortlist shelve. The other shelves remain a mystery in the main view.
6. Last but not least: the slow page turns, the dead taps and the endless waits for a reaction are so annoying that for now I stopped using my KT for reading purposes. and I returned to the old paper and ink versions… I guess I have to wait for an update that will address this problem or otherwise go back to 1.9x

A possible bug: while playing with the extra font settings my KT suddenly froze and rebooted.

I hope there will be a firmware fix soon. I love my KoboTouch too much to stash it on a bookshelf.

[kiwipippa]

Originally Posted by SameerH

Hi everyone, just wanted to let everyone know that we have a team working on fixing some of the issues that are being reported. If you have a device that was frozen while applying the upgrade, please email me at shasan at kobo dot com and provide me with the email address you used to register with Kobo.

Is one of these issues the very slow page turns on side loaded epubs? I hope so.

I've been a kobo reader since the original came out in mid 2010 and haven't been on the boards much for months because I've been a happy camper. But the page turn issue on this upgrade is BAD. The KT now feels like my old Kobo original! Please fix it quickly

[Techbar]

I have 13 fonts on my touch so the font selection list shows the first 8 and then a down arrow to access the rest. If you select a font that is not in the first 8 you don't get the option to access the advanced font features showing so can't change the weight etc.
When in the advanced screen the font list only shows 8 fonts and there is no down arrow to access the rest.
As noted by others the page turning / response to touch is now very slow (with side loaded epubs at least) PLEASE fix this!

[taming]

Originally Posted by clsdclsd

It depends on the firmware version your Kobo came with (and the factory reset reverts to). The 2.0 version doesn't put those fonts on, but if the original version has them, they remain.

I don't think this is true. I got my Touch as soon as it was released so I had the first firmware. I have the full set of fonts. I installed 2.0 from a factory reset.

[Lunchtray]

Originally Posted by ArmorDog

For what it's worth, here are my experiences with the new firmware:

3) Page turns in sideloaded epubs are slower now (feels like, as some have said, turning pages on the wifi). If I could pick one thing to change in this update, this would be it.

4) I miss the old clock display. Oh well.

I put my Touch w Firmware 2.0 against my wifes Touch w 1.9.17 and the sideloaded ePub page turns are crazy slow. I'm not to happy with the slowdown.

Also, I don't like they buried the clock so much either. I mean the dev there said clutter but I used it all the time center clicking while reading i hate that it's buried. Also, they added a % complete the book at the top now too... so I don't get how it was that cluttered.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by clsdclsd

It depends on the firmware version your Kobo came with (and the factory reset reverts to). The 2.0 version doesn't put those fonts on, but if the original version has them, they remain.

Ah, now I got it. You don't necessarily need .17, just a firmware that already has the fonts.

[nogle]

Originally Posted by pilothaz

Is there a reason why my wifi never works? Anytime I click it back to 'on' and sync it doesn't connect and shows an error.

The only way to do it, is to delete my saved wifi and create a new one each and everytime. This is very annoying and doesn't help me in convenience.

I had this a couple of weeks ago. I tried doign a factory reset and it didn't help. Once my touch connected, it would kick my computer off. Turned out to be the router; my ISP pushed down a firmware update and I think it messed things up.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by MDK

I think a small explanation for the clock change might help answer some questions:

With the addition of global search and settings, the status bar area was becoming exceedingly busy and cramped; as a result it was becoming difficult to have a meaningful amount of text in there to convey necessary messages to the user.

The clock is still available under the settings dropdown with the same behavior as before. We explored many options before and during the beta and the current solution was chosen as the best compromise. Having said that we are not necessarily done here and there is always room for improvement.

But it's 2 more taps now than it used to be.

And haven't there been 3 icons on the top right before (sync, the clock and an airplane if airplane mode was on) or do I imagine things?

Why not leave the WiFi status bar off when reading books (where there's the two extra taps that are necessary). If you wanted to check wether you had WiFi on or not when reading, you could tap the gear in the left where there's the option to activate WiFi.

It's much, much more likely that people will want to check the time fast (and maybe more than once while reading) than wanting to check wether WiFi was on or not.

Originally Posted by Danger

As I suggested earlier, how about just giving us options? Do I need to know that my wifi is deactivated? Nope I don't, Do I find that useful to see whenever I do a center tap when reading a book? No I don't. Do I find the clock useful when I center tap? I certainly do!

Show Wifi icon on screen when turned off [ ] yes [ ] no.

Give us the choice as to how busy or not busy we want the screen.

Or this.

If we had more options what to display where, that would be fantastic.

The tweaks plugin offered the possibilities and made the Kobo rather special that way. Why not trying to officially add something like that? Maybe having a "standard" and "advanced" menu setting. That way tech savvy people will have the option to tweak quite a bit (and wouldn't we love it?) and less tech savvy people will not be bothered.

Don't know if that would work for the clock, but for other menu items like the Shortlist in the Library menu it should work, right?