It’s been six months since Kobo last released a software update for their line of dedicated ereaders. They used to release updates a lot more frequently than that, so what has changed?
It was the same story last year. After 6 months of nothing for the first half of the year, they finally released a major notetaking update soon after the Kobo Elipsa 2E was released for the 1st gen Elipsa and the Kobo Sage, with minor changes for their regular ereaders.
Then in August they released the current 4.38.21908 update, and that was mostly just a bug fix update to correct an issue with logging into Pocket.
Kobo used to issue software updates every few months to add new features and fix bugs, but over the past year and a half their software development has really slowed down a lot.
The last time Kobo added any notable new features to their ereaders was in late 2022. Back then they were updating their software every 1-3 months. In fact they released seven different updates throughout 2022.
To compound matters, the latest software seems to be more prone to database corruption issues than older software, and it’s causing problems for some folks, especially those that like to sideload books using a computer. At some point you’d think they could get that problem fixed; 6 months is a long time to go without any updates.
It makes you wonder if Kobo is working on something big for the future, or have they just cut back on software development to save money?
Kobo is expected to release two new ereaders this year so maybe they’re busy working on something new and different for a change instead of just re-releasing existing products with minor changes like they usually do. It’s possible they’re working on software for a new color ereader; that would take a lot of extra work to get ghosting to an acceptable level, and that would help explain the lack of development for existing devices.
Recently, Kobo was asking Reddit’s users about software features they liked to have and how they use their ereader. Maybe the next Kobo software will have big changes with the release of their new hardware. One can dream…
I still hope for sync of sideloaded books with reading progress. It’s such a major thing and they still ignore it. When people discussed on Reddit what they most want this was the single most upvoted thing. Hopefuly Kobo listens.
If Kobo supports such a feature, I suspect they will charge us for cloud storage. That questionnaire you referred to emphasized a lot of cloud references. I wouldn’t be surprised if the new device had X months free of cloud support, and everybody else had to subscribe to it. Depending on what they charge, I might do it. I’d love to see sideload bookmark and annotation syncing and sideloaded books syncing in collections support.
My first thought was also that they’re releasing a new firmware alongside with a new ereader, so that’s why it is late. Personally I’m not really excited about updates, I’m just reading text on the device. Although they could add a bunch of features, like an option to have clock and date while you’re reading, more default fonts etc. (especially, that my Libra 2 revision 2 is missing some), so you don’t have to hack your kobo (which is fun btw).
Don’t think so they come out soon with a color e-reader, because even the newest Kaleido is just meh. The contrast still so low, I don’t want any color E-ink just yet.
I was all in for a 6 or 5 inch device, now I changed my mind and want an 8 inch Forma 2 and with a Mobius Carta 1300, that would be a blast.
I would guess it is because they have so many models to support, as well as the two that you mention that are coming out this year. That is a lot of work.
I was just wondering about this very issue tonight and dropped by to see if you had anything to say about it. I’m used to Kobo’s more frequent update schedule than this new incarnation. If the firmware was stable, I could see why they’d avoid updates, but as you pointed out, the latest firmware causes database corruptions. I’ve run into that problem once on my Clara 2E, and that was a pain to correct.
The iOS app are improving though. Perhaps they are reallocating resources. And now Kindle is not very active either, so less pressure. I hope is not a decadence sign.