Lol, I thought it meant you could access the Linux system without jailbreaking.
I had no idea they didn't even allow you to load on your own books previously.
I'm pretty happy with my strategy of rooting a device I own, installing something like Syncthing and KOReader and not having to care whatever bullshit the manufacturer is trying to pull. This also works well for Kindles, which allow loading on your own files by default, but, hilariously, don't support the standard format for e-books in their default reader.
You could always load your own books since the first Kobo (in fact the only ways to get books on there was USB and Bluetooth with a Blackberry). This literally just removes the first setup requirement to log in with an account.
You also don't need to root a Kobo to install KOReader or other tweaks. They are far more friendly in that regard than Amazon.
They did allow you to load your own books previously. This removes the requirement of signing in with a kobo account during device setup, which effectively removes the kobo store from the device.
> I had no idea they didn't even allow you to load on your own books previously.
That does seem strange, yeah. I had a kobo ereader around 5-6 years ago, and i distinctly remember uploading my books to it using Calibre (desktop ebook management software) without any jailbreaking, it just worked as you would expect it to.
I assume maybe they added a way to do it now without using Calibre, but that seems barely useful, as anyone managing local digital copies of books was using Calibre already anyway, and it worked with no jailbreaking.
I had no idea they didn't even allow you to load on your own books previously.
I'm pretty happy with my strategy of rooting a device I own, installing something like Syncthing and KOReader and not having to care whatever bullshit the manufacturer is trying to pull. This also works well for Kindles, which allow loading on your own files by default, but, hilariously, don't support the standard format for e-books in their default reader.