Kobo Books 12+

First of all- I love Kobo and have a Kobo Glo e-reader too. 😘 I just read that some problems with the App may really be problems between iPhone and the Kobo App..which makes sense. Just to report on the App itself as per my own experience, I have some real difficulties. The most important is that I can't close and set as finished an e-book- not in any of the three supposed ways listed on the App! Also while much less troublesome than years past, I too notice that occasionally the book I tap- is not what opens..and I mean even when I try *very* carefully. Some other parts of the App are dysfunctional too, such as the section entitled "Manage Downloads". I have a great many Kobo e-books-yet only about 6-7 are listed here and I can't seem to do anything with them anyway, except perhaps delete them. Secondly, I've read on the App several times, that we should be able to sync what we're reading from our Kobo E-readers, to Kobo on our desktops, to our Kobo Apps and back exactly- so whatever page we are on in an e-book- will open exactly the same for us on whichever device we choose at a given time. However, at least on this particular update, so far, this piece of the App doesn't work for me. I still love that I have the Kobo App, and I use it. I liked the old "themes" and I like the new ones. It would be *great* though, if it worked fully in all the stated ways.

I’ve used kobo for years and it worked perfectly for my needs until they messed with the programming. What I like the least is that the screen no longer dims for reading at night with the lights off. At the dimmest setting on the new app the light is so bright it will burn your retinas. That is a shame because the old app could dim down quite nicely and that made it way better than kindle—although, I haven’t looked at kindle in a decade so maybe they have added that feature.

More recently, an update to kobo made it so that the last few words at the end of a chapter would drop off. These words can be retrieved by adjusting the font size, but it disrupts the flow of being immersed in what one is reading. And there’s the issue of the app not retaining the reader’s place in the book. That seems to have improved some in the last couple days. Now the app doesn’t retain the book, but once you reopen the book it opens pretty close to where you left off reading. I’ve noticed several changes in just the last 7 days so hopefully, they will soon get things back to how they were before they improved the app. Fingers crossed that they fix the dimming option too.

I’ve been using this app for a while now, long enough for there to have been some significant updates. Some needed things have been added, like background colors, and options for columns in landscape mode. But the app is disappointingly inconsistent in applying settings to books. I can be reading in 2 columns, close the app to do something else, and come back….and no columns. Since I didn’t change any settings, and it still shows “columns in landscape” as a chosen setting, it’s hard for me to understand why it keeps changing. As a user of a separate note taking app, it would be nice to have the option to copy highlighted text and copy it, without having to do screenshots. And it would be VERY nice to have the app support split screen. I remain hopeful that the app will continue to improve, and I appreciate having a viable option other than You Know Who’s e-reader.

Updated March 2024: Now supporting split screen, which makes me very happy. Thank you!