Amazon is the number one player in the e-reader sector, and one of their most popular programs is Send to Kindle. It allows people to download a program or use their email client to send ebooks from a PC/MAC directly to their e-reader. Amazon only supports a small handful of supported ebook formats. Still, one of their new initiatives was to help people send EPUB books to their Kindle, and in the background, would convert them to a Kindle-friendly format. Kobo is the global number two player, and they have never developed a Send to Kobo program, but they should.
Kobo supports Dropbox and Google Drive, but only on their premium e-readers, such as the Kobo Libra Colour. Dropbox is supported on the Kobo Sage, Kobo Forma, and Kobo Elipsa 2e. Not everyone uses Dropbox to house an ebook collection. Send to Kobo would make a lot of sense. Sometimes, people at work or school want to send documents, textbooks, and PDF files directly to their Kobo e-reader at home. Kobo does support sending books via Email, but it is a convoluted process that requires multiple steps.
Kobo has to understand that not everyone knows Dropbox is supported on their e-reader, has a Dropbox account, or even knows what it does. Anyone who owns a Kindle has likely heard of Send to Kindle before, even if they have never used it. Kobo has a small army of programmers and engineers who could likely work on a dedicated app to send ebooks right to the Kobo without using Kobo’s clunky desktop software.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.