Hi there,
I wasn't going to bother writing down my findings because I don't want to spend my time on negative thoughts or words.
But after seeing this UI (user interface) getting worse with every new version, I just cannot let it pass by.
My wish is to stir something up in the Kobo developers, to hopefully get them to develop an UI that's worthy of the hardware.
I am judging their work, not their person nor their effort.
I may use a harsh comment here and there, but I will refrain from name calling or personal insults.
If any individual feels offended by my criticism, chances are this individual fits the shoe.
Ok, hold on to your seatbelts. :eek:
The Kobo Glo is in my opinion a nice piece of hardware, uncomplicated, pretty solid and it potentially could get the job done if it wasn't for the Kobo developers, in particular the one or ones designing the UI.
In 27 years of computering, developing, coding, beta testing, troubleshooting and what not, I did see some really shitty software, but Kobo's firmwares in general and this firmware in particular set a new standard.
One could say, I've seen worse. Yes, maybe, but consider this. Developing for the GLO isn't so hard, on the contrary.
This eReader has little functionality hardware wise; no sound, no multimedia, no backward compatibility to consider, no 3rd party software, no (real) games, no plug an play hardware (except for a SD card).
It is such a simple piece of hardware to write code for, it is embarrassing to see how the Kobo team is struggling to come up with a solid, intelligent UI for it.
I am not biased in any way toward any other brand or against Kobo. The Glo is my first ereader and despite the software I am happy with it. I live a traveling life in a mobile home and I don't have space for books.
When I'm reading a book I forget about the UI ... that is until I need to turn a page, or have to do something other than read on it.
The UI (not just the latest FW) always manages to get in my way, either by letting me wait 4, 5, 6 seconds, or making me press several times, options where you would not expect them to be or the opposite.
What in general I encountered in the time I own the Glo:
Opening books not bringing me to the last read page that I bookmarked,
Sudoku freezing the machine with only option being reboot,
Machine responsiveness reducing to almost zero,
Bookmarks disappearing after FW updates,
FW updates not showing release notes,
FW updates not showing correct FW version,
Latest FW has the release notes button removed altogether. Are we not to know what got messed up this time?
Never imagined a machine with so little functionality could have so many problems, some people's washing machines are more complicated than the GLO :D
I could fill a whole page with my findings, but I feel this is nuf said.
Now let's get to this latest FW 2.6.1. :smack:
Failure1:
Pressing the brightness icon doesn't give you direct control over the brightness anymore. You have to press on a second brightness icon to access the control.
I wonder how many extra presses that will mount to per year? Well, it's double the amount that's for sure. :p (not to forget every press uses up a bit of your battery)
Failure2:
The brightness control is not conveniently on the bottom of the screen anymore where I could swipe it without moving my hand while continuing reading.
It is in the middle of the screen now, eliminating both mentioned advantages in one go. :thumbsup:
Failure3:
One would think it would be impossible to further screw up the brightness functionality, but one would think wrong! :angry:
At night I like to turn down the Glo's light a bit and play one or two games of Sudoku before I go to sleep.
But somehow the devs forgot there is no topbar in Sudoku, so there's no way to access the brightness settings.
To turn down the light I now have to do the following:
1. press menu
2. press save and close
3. press any of the four icons (light, wifi, battery or menu) or anywhere on the topbar except home.
4. press brightness
5. turn down brightness
6. press the X or any other part of the screen
7. press any of the four bar icons again
8. press settings
9. press extra
10. press the Sudoku start button
Combine that with the fact I have to press some of them twice or more (responsiveness) and we are looking at anywhere from 10 to 20 presses to turn down the light. :rifle:
Why are programs like Sudoku under settings in the first place?
Update. "Luckily" in failure4 (the new mainscreen) a direct link to Sudoku appeared after playing it, so as long as I don't open to many books after playing it, I can turn down the light in only 6 steps. Yay!. :thumbsup:
(Epic)Failure4: The mainscreen. I always considered the mainscreen a joke ever since I own the Glo, but what on earth are they up to at Kobo? Tiles? Are they planning to integrate it with Windows 8? Come on! A mainscreen should be a nerve-center where everything comes together. This one only gets on my nerves!
I mean, what is Sketchpad doing on my mainscreen after I opened it once? Is it suddenly a favorite because I opened it once? Shouldn't I be the one to decide?
What is Sketchpad doing on the Glo in the first place?
Did you know you can even save the stupid lines you draw with it? As if anything you draw with it could be worth saving!
BTW, better not save them because the drawings will all appear on your mainscreen as if they were books.
BTW, to annoy you even further they will also appear on your mainscreen in a tile called "books added".
BTW, to really piss you off they will also appear in your books library. (better create a shelf for all your "artwork" then). :rofl:
After I made and saved 8 drawings there were no more books on my mainscreen, just drawings, meaning you have no control over what stays on the screen.
BTW, the direct link to Sudoku is also gone now, so back to ten steps to turn the light down. Bummer.
A word of caution !!!BUG!!!.
When in library, when you click on the menu next to a drawing and chose edit, the Sketchpad opens without any UI, meaning you are stuck in it and only a reset of the Glo can save you.
Opening it by merely pressing on the drawing opens it with UI. So that's a Bug and a design failure. Why the edit option in a menu when just pressing on the drawing does the same thing?
It is becoming pretty sad now. I manually deleted the drawings from the screen by pressing and holding and choosing 'dismiss tile' and now I'm left with 4 books and some tiles with Sketchpad, Sudoku, Chess, Internet browser and Sync, none of which I want there.
There is plenty of room for another book bottom left and without the unwanted tiles at least two more, but for some reason it stays unused. So I start opening some books to see if my screen can be filled with only books again. Nope, Kobo made the program tiles stay at the expense of the books. When I open more books, other books disappear but the programs stay.
So I have to press and hold each of them and chose dismiss tile. Now they are gone but they will be back after the next time you open any of these programs.
You will have a lot of dismissing to do in the future.
On the upside of that, one could say the Glo is getting more interactive with this new FW.
Failure4 could fill a thread on it's own.
Lets examine the search-box that is occupying the whole width of the screen.
What happens when you press it? Can you type directly in the box? Nope, the old search dialog appears!
So, in fact it's a button disguised as a text-box over the entire width of the screen.
Can any of the developers (a word that is getting ever harder for me to use) explain what's the point of this?
More about the mainscreen:
Why can't I still get rid of reading life on my screen? Why is it there when I have it switched off?
What is sync now doing on my mainscreen? Why is it the only tile I can't dismiss?
Why is statistics on my mainscreen? And why does it keep appearing after I dismissed it?
I don't give a damn how many books I have read or how long it took me. Other people might, so make it optional.
Make everything optional, that's my bottom line, it's my ereader! I will decide what's important to me!
Another bug detected. When you turn on wifi the wifi icon disappears from the bar. One would expect and wish for the exact opposite behavior.
Note: Sometimes it will reappear and disappear again after some navigating, so it's unpredictable behavior as well.
About the tiles themselves. I don't want them. They are ugly, they make my bookcovers even smaller than they were before and I have no control over them.
Stop this nonsense and focus on making a real UI for ...... sake! This hardware deserves descent software.
If Kobo needs help, I can create a mock-up UI for this machine that will make everybody happy if not drool.
Fully logic, fully configurable, using the screen real estate efficiently and non obtrusively.
Kobo will have to do the coding, cause coding for Linux is not my thing.
There are still a few UI mistakes and bugs in FW 2.6.1 that were there since the beginning, but I think this post is long enough as it is.
rant off//
Greetings
Mike
I wasn't going to bother writing down my findings because I don't want to spend my time on negative thoughts or words.
But after seeing this UI (user interface) getting worse with every new version, I just cannot let it pass by.
My wish is to stir something up in the Kobo developers, to hopefully get them to develop an UI that's worthy of the hardware.
I am judging their work, not their person nor their effort.
I may use a harsh comment here and there, but I will refrain from name calling or personal insults.
If any individual feels offended by my criticism, chances are this individual fits the shoe.
Ok, hold on to your seatbelts. :eek:
The Kobo Glo is in my opinion a nice piece of hardware, uncomplicated, pretty solid and it potentially could get the job done if it wasn't for the Kobo developers, in particular the one or ones designing the UI.
In 27 years of computering, developing, coding, beta testing, troubleshooting and what not, I did see some really shitty software, but Kobo's firmwares in general and this firmware in particular set a new standard.
One could say, I've seen worse. Yes, maybe, but consider this. Developing for the GLO isn't so hard, on the contrary.
This eReader has little functionality hardware wise; no sound, no multimedia, no backward compatibility to consider, no 3rd party software, no (real) games, no plug an play hardware (except for a SD card).
It is such a simple piece of hardware to write code for, it is embarrassing to see how the Kobo team is struggling to come up with a solid, intelligent UI for it.
I am not biased in any way toward any other brand or against Kobo. The Glo is my first ereader and despite the software I am happy with it. I live a traveling life in a mobile home and I don't have space for books.
When I'm reading a book I forget about the UI ... that is until I need to turn a page, or have to do something other than read on it.
The UI (not just the latest FW) always manages to get in my way, either by letting me wait 4, 5, 6 seconds, or making me press several times, options where you would not expect them to be or the opposite.
What in general I encountered in the time I own the Glo:
Opening books not bringing me to the last read page that I bookmarked,
Sudoku freezing the machine with only option being reboot,
Machine responsiveness reducing to almost zero,
Bookmarks disappearing after FW updates,
FW updates not showing release notes,
FW updates not showing correct FW version,
Latest FW has the release notes button removed altogether. Are we not to know what got messed up this time?
Never imagined a machine with so little functionality could have so many problems, some people's washing machines are more complicated than the GLO :D
I could fill a whole page with my findings, but I feel this is nuf said.
Now let's get to this latest FW 2.6.1. :smack:
Failure1:
Pressing the brightness icon doesn't give you direct control over the brightness anymore. You have to press on a second brightness icon to access the control.
I wonder how many extra presses that will mount to per year? Well, it's double the amount that's for sure. :p (not to forget every press uses up a bit of your battery)
Failure2:
The brightness control is not conveniently on the bottom of the screen anymore where I could swipe it without moving my hand while continuing reading.
It is in the middle of the screen now, eliminating both mentioned advantages in one go. :thumbsup:
Failure3:
One would think it would be impossible to further screw up the brightness functionality, but one would think wrong! :angry:
At night I like to turn down the Glo's light a bit and play one or two games of Sudoku before I go to sleep.
But somehow the devs forgot there is no topbar in Sudoku, so there's no way to access the brightness settings.
To turn down the light I now have to do the following:
1. press menu
2. press save and close
3. press any of the four icons (light, wifi, battery or menu) or anywhere on the topbar except home.
4. press brightness
5. turn down brightness
6. press the X or any other part of the screen
7. press any of the four bar icons again
8. press settings
9. press extra
10. press the Sudoku start button
Combine that with the fact I have to press some of them twice or more (responsiveness) and we are looking at anywhere from 10 to 20 presses to turn down the light. :rifle:
Why are programs like Sudoku under settings in the first place?
Update. "Luckily" in failure4 (the new mainscreen) a direct link to Sudoku appeared after playing it, so as long as I don't open to many books after playing it, I can turn down the light in only 6 steps. Yay!. :thumbsup:
(Epic)Failure4: The mainscreen. I always considered the mainscreen a joke ever since I own the Glo, but what on earth are they up to at Kobo? Tiles? Are they planning to integrate it with Windows 8? Come on! A mainscreen should be a nerve-center where everything comes together. This one only gets on my nerves!
I mean, what is Sketchpad doing on my mainscreen after I opened it once? Is it suddenly a favorite because I opened it once? Shouldn't I be the one to decide?
What is Sketchpad doing on the Glo in the first place?
Did you know you can even save the stupid lines you draw with it? As if anything you draw with it could be worth saving!
BTW, better not save them because the drawings will all appear on your mainscreen as if they were books.
BTW, to annoy you even further they will also appear on your mainscreen in a tile called "books added".
BTW, to really piss you off they will also appear in your books library. (better create a shelf for all your "artwork" then). :rofl:
After I made and saved 8 drawings there were no more books on my mainscreen, just drawings, meaning you have no control over what stays on the screen.
BTW, the direct link to Sudoku is also gone now, so back to ten steps to turn the light down. Bummer.
A word of caution !!!BUG!!!.
When in library, when you click on the menu next to a drawing and chose edit, the Sketchpad opens without any UI, meaning you are stuck in it and only a reset of the Glo can save you.
Opening it by merely pressing on the drawing opens it with UI. So that's a Bug and a design failure. Why the edit option in a menu when just pressing on the drawing does the same thing?
It is becoming pretty sad now. I manually deleted the drawings from the screen by pressing and holding and choosing 'dismiss tile' and now I'm left with 4 books and some tiles with Sketchpad, Sudoku, Chess, Internet browser and Sync, none of which I want there.
There is plenty of room for another book bottom left and without the unwanted tiles at least two more, but for some reason it stays unused. So I start opening some books to see if my screen can be filled with only books again. Nope, Kobo made the program tiles stay at the expense of the books. When I open more books, other books disappear but the programs stay.
So I have to press and hold each of them and chose dismiss tile. Now they are gone but they will be back after the next time you open any of these programs.
You will have a lot of dismissing to do in the future.
On the upside of that, one could say the Glo is getting more interactive with this new FW.
Failure4 could fill a thread on it's own.
Lets examine the search-box that is occupying the whole width of the screen.
What happens when you press it? Can you type directly in the box? Nope, the old search dialog appears!
So, in fact it's a button disguised as a text-box over the entire width of the screen.
Can any of the developers (a word that is getting ever harder for me to use) explain what's the point of this?
More about the mainscreen:
Why can't I still get rid of reading life on my screen? Why is it there when I have it switched off?
What is sync now doing on my mainscreen? Why is it the only tile I can't dismiss?
Why is statistics on my mainscreen? And why does it keep appearing after I dismissed it?
I don't give a damn how many books I have read or how long it took me. Other people might, so make it optional.
Make everything optional, that's my bottom line, it's my ereader! I will decide what's important to me!
Another bug detected. When you turn on wifi the wifi icon disappears from the bar. One would expect and wish for the exact opposite behavior.
Note: Sometimes it will reappear and disappear again after some navigating, so it's unpredictable behavior as well.
About the tiles themselves. I don't want them. They are ugly, they make my bookcovers even smaller than they were before and I have no control over them.
Stop this nonsense and focus on making a real UI for ...... sake! This hardware deserves descent software.
If Kobo needs help, I can create a mock-up UI for this machine that will make everybody happy if not drool.
Fully logic, fully configurable, using the screen real estate efficiently and non obtrusively.
Kobo will have to do the coding, cause coding for Linux is not my thing.
There are still a few UI mistakes and bugs in FW 2.6.1 that were there since the beginning, but I think this post is long enough as it is.
rant off//
Greetings
Mike