Kobo e-reader app available for Windows 8 with new UI, library search

If you watched our Windows 8 Consumer Preview liveblog yesterday, you might have noticed the Kobo icon peeking out once or twice onstage at the event. Well, if you take a look at the Windows Store on a device running the new OS, you’ll notice that the Kobo app is available for download, making it one of the only e-reader apps (along with Amazon’s Kindle) to be available with the launch of the new store. Kobo’s app features a revamped UI that’s a little different from what it offers on other platforms, with a new, easier-to-search library, cloud storage for all your books, and a new Windows 8 desktop client to match its offerings for current-gen Windows and OS X. The desktop app lets you download books to read later, or transfer them over to your Windows 8 tablet — a useful feature if you like to grab new books while you’re browsing on your desktop machine. Right now there are only a few apps in the Windows Store, and with 184 free ebooks for Kobo, there’s no reason not to try it out.