Read Distraction Free on Your Tablet with Kobo Reading Mode

One of the largest drawbacks about reading on a tablet is the sheer amount of distractions users are bombarded with. Reading immersion is often a battleground of Facebook and Twitter updates, instant messages and emails. This often can detract from really getting into a book and is often the number one complaint about reading on a dedicated tablet. Kobo is seeking to solve this with a new software initiative called Reading Mode.

Reading Mode is a new option that will see the light of day when the new Kobo Ara HD 10 and HD 7 are launched this October. It basically is a setting that you can turn on and will eliminate all notifications you would normally receive on your device. This really solves the problem of being distracted on your tablet while you are reading a magazine, eBook or graphic novel.

Reader Mode has patents being filed for it right now and Kobo is hoping to bring this functionality to their iOS and Android apps in the near future.

Michael Kozlowski (7738 Posts)

Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about electronic readers and technology for the last four years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the Huffington Post, CNET and more. Michael frequently travels to international events such as IFA, Computex, CES, Book Expo and a myriad of others. If you have any questions about any of his articles, please send Michael Kozlowski an email to michael@goodereader.com

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MaskedHypocrite

I suppose it’ll be good on the smaller tablets, since I’m sure Kobo will insist on giving us the crappy phone UI that Google stupidly set as the default for 7″ *TABLETS*, which has no global notifications toggle (alas, like on the Arc you’ll need to root it and then mess with the pixel density setting in /system/build.prop to get the proper tablet UI, but that causes screen lag :/) instead of taking less than 5 minutes to edit the IF/ELSE series equivalents in the source to, without causing a performance hit, force the proper tablet UI – or 5 minutes on top of that to add a toggle to the settings so that people can choose their own preference (‘cos I hear some people actually like using a UI meant for 3-4″ phones on a device that’s twice as large so that it’s impossible to do quickly do everything with the thumb of the hand you’re holding it with like the UI was designed for).

Utterly pointless on the 10″ tablet, though, since you can just tap twice on the clock to bring up the notifications toggle (and brightness toggle, another very important toggle that’s missing from the phone UI they force on 7″ *TABLETS*) whenever you need it.