Kobo announced their newest eReader last week, and they promised that the new Kobo Touch would ship sometime in June. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. Borders are now showing a new ship date for the Kobo Touch, and we’re going to have to wait a while. Borders won’t be able to get the new eReader out until the end of July.
Considering that Kobo boasted that this eReader would be available in time for Father’s Day, it’s a fairly serious delay. Kobo won’t comment on the reason for the delay, nor have they confirmed it.
Update: I have a comment now, and it can be summed up as a more polite form of “what are you smoking?”. Kobo insisted that the Kobo Touch would ship in mid-June.
Second Update: Borders have now responded and they are standing by the ship date of 30 July.
The Nook Touch ships next week and it’s really going to ship, which means this mistake is going to hurt Kobo. They’re going to lose sales to their bigger and stronger competitor. Ouch.
Curiously enough, it looks like the Kobo Touch might ship in Canada in June, though I haven’t confirmed it. Indigo (one of Kobo’s owners) are still showing a ship date of June. But it might have slipped and not been updated yet.
I wonder if Borders’ financial problems are the cause for the delay? nah. it’s probably a production issue of some kind.
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I suspect an issue with touch sensitivity, which is something I’ve seen in video after video. No one should ever have to tap something twice to get it to work.
Too bad about this delay. It will really, really hurt Borders especially.
STRANGE THAT YOU CANT SEEM TO GET YOR FACTS STRAIGHT. I BOUGHT MY KOBO TOUCH ON JUNE 10TH THAT SEEMS JUST A BOUT RIGHT. FOR MID JUNE INFACT SOME MIGHT SAY WAY AHEAD OF THE SCHEDULE. AT ANY RATE GOOD LUCK
Your comment is rather odd. The post includes conflicting statements from Borders and Kobo. I would think they showed that the facts of the situation are less than clear. In fact, Kobo said that you’d get your new e-reader about the time you got it. I don’t know what your problem is.
What’s almost as odd is that no online reviewers were able to touch the Nook Simple Touch when it was announced for shipping within 10 days.
Correction: Reporters were allowed to touch the frame.
I suspect they are rushing to production as they have done with their other models, which are very buggy out the door, usually for at least half a year and then some.
My NookColor is now a year old and it has been very buggy (including a strange charger for too many), with a touch screen that people describe, at the NookColor Technical Support Forum, as having a mind of its own. That’s a fairly accurate description.
The newest Update to NookColor, to give us Flash & Youtube video (very good!) and Android apps even if limited, has brought many new bugs and a removal of copy/paste for webpages (cannot even highlight and paste).
But trying to type an email on that touchscreen is not pleasant, as even hovering over a key can make it activate and it can be a key you’re not even that close to (which can erase my just written email before I can send it). So I suspect that the touchscreen activity had to be handled only by the person very experienced with it during the announcement.
The Sony Readers also had a learning curve for the touch screen, so you could be right.
The double-ought series especially.
They could be revising the firmware. As you pointed out it is slow and I have seen several videos where the reader is slow and the touch screen sluggish. The Nook Touch seems better.
I have only had one instance of my Nook Color doing something wacky. I was eating soup and a tiny drop hit the screen and it flipped pages continually. After I wiped off the drop, it still did so and I had to force a shutdown and restart it to get it working right again.
Sweaty fingers will do that too. Any moisture on the screen with FUBAR it. So will trying to use it while charging.
*WILL, not with FUBAR. Geez. FUBARed myself!
Tyler, the NookColor keyboard wackiness comes when you do a typing job on it, although yes, sometimes it too quickly “obeys” a finger hovering over it on a warm day.
Certain screen displays freeze when there are rows and you have to finger-expand the display a bit to get it unfrozen.
But mainly, the NookColor screen is just oversensitive for many.
For what it’s worth, the Borders website has _always_ shown a July 30 ship date for the Kobo Touch.
I picked up the discrepancy and asked @Kobo and @Borders about it on twitter on May 23rd. No response from either party.
Good eye.
You’re more observant than me. I only noticed on Friday when I went to order one, and I only posted today after my competition posted a story.
I’ll second Eric’s post — the Border’s website always said July 30th and a couple of folks at a popular ebook forum went to Borders and the staff told them the same date.
In other words, no delay and therefore no reason to speculate on why the delay.
So, perhaps a correction in your story is in order?
Did you see the 2 updates I already added?
It may have been that day all along, but it’s still strange. The ship dates are close to 6 weeks apart. Borders posted that date for a reason; what is it?
The speculation is still valid.
Dammit. I went to the Borders site the day the KT was announced. I didn’t read carefully enough to notice the 7/30 date. I relied on that whole “available for dads and grads” line from Kobo itself. So, IOW, Borders knew it was being screwed up front.
They want you to buy it for Dad’s and Grads and they are suppose to wait for it to arrive. I called the store in Fairfax and they do not have a release date for it as of yet.
Borders simply cannot catch a break.
Third update: Just got a tweet from Borders this morning confirming the KT will ship by Fathers’ Day, and they are supposed to be updating the website to reflect that.
I got curious, because I got an email from Borders overnight billing Fathers’ Day delivery. This morning, both @Kobo and @Borders responded within a couple hours.