Leave a Review SimplyE
Good Start - But Needs Lots of Work
Mostly good. And has made many improvements since it came out. The integration with the NYPL is very good and much more convenient than the old process for downloading borrowed ebooks to the kindle app.
But there a few things that still need work. Here are my top 3:
If I change the font or the orientation of my iPad in the middle of a chapter, the app resets me to the beginning of the chapter and I then have to page forward until I find my place.
Hyphenation needs work. Here’s just one example in the book I just read. The word “designed” was hyphenated after the i. Yes desi-gend.
The app needs to be made more resilient in situations where the WiFi connection is good but the library’s servers, for whatever reason, are not responding. I’ve had crashes and failures to open my book even thought the book I was trying to open was already downloaded.Show lesslp1756
Problems are fixed, thank you!
Update: all is fixed and I didn’t lose my books or my queue. Thank you!
1. All the books in my queue now goes into “My Books” tab, with a button to download, even though I know that just earlier today (before the update) I still had to wait for weeks for them to be available for me.
2. When I click “Download”, the button switches to “Read”, seemingly showing that the book has been downloaded successfully and now ready to read
3. When I click “Read”, an error message says “Could not display book - This book is corrupt and cannot be read”.
4. Nothing I can do to fix this error message, including quitting the app.
5. There is no option to remove the books from “My Books”. There’s no other button other than “Download”
6. All other new books that were not previously in the queue also get the same treatment as all the points noted below. None of them go to waitlist. All of them shows that it’s ready to read but when you click it, it shows the same “corrupt” message
7. Why is there no option to report the bug with screenshots???
It’s so frustrating! I agree with the review before me that says that every time there’s an update, this app becomes worse!Show lessNe9999
Duplicating Bookmarks and Search Please
Ok, still the below and now something else. I know you recently updated because of a bug where books reserved were showing as available. Well I updated but they’re still showing available and if I try reading them I get a message about the file being corrupted. So...update again please?
App is coming along and bookmarks work well! BUT:
1. Selecting text gets weird. The selecting stays on the page instead of disappearing after looking it up, etc. Very distracting! Will stay up for a few pages in the same location.
2. I want to be able to search for specific words! One book I’m reading has an index/glossary, and it’s getting annoying having to go page by page until I find the word in the index I’m looking for.
3. Might be asking too much, but: notes and note exporting would be AWESOME. Maybe that’s a moonshot objective, but they could be specific to a users library account and use local phone memory to store.
Great job guys, you’re doing great! Keep up the updates!!Show lessFabulously Lucrative
Great when working- many many glitches
When the app is functioning well it’s one of my favorites and my primary way to read when commuting or traveling. The selection is great.
However, there are many glitches and they don’t seem to improve year to year.
Recently the app suddenly put all my reserve books into my main reading tab ready for download- when I did download then it says its corrupt. When I return and hit reserve it goes to download again. This is not the first time this has happened. Last time I had to delete & reinstall the app to get it fixed- losing all my books and having to wait for many to become available again after nearly finishing them or being at the front of the reserve order.
The app has the report an issue section but there’s never any follow up- feels like asking for help into a void.Show lessCSJ22
Super convenient with a slight drawback
I absolutely love the convenience this app provides. You have access to NYPL's extensive ebook catalogue. It's as simple as downloading the book you want, or if it's not yet available, simply reserving a book for download when it's ready.
In my experience the only drawback is like others have said in their reviews: if you select text to copy or look up a definition, the highlighted selection box won’t disappear after you’re finished. It’s a bit distracting until you turn the page.
I think that’s fairly minor though and not a deal breaker. The developers have made consistent improvements over the last several months and I love this app now.Show lessekhalila
Why make a semi-ok app worse with updates?
For some reason each time stability updates are applied to this app... it’s more unstable? It’s almost impossible to turn the “pages” now, the pages don’t “turn” - they suddenly, rapidly “slide” (which is unendingly disorienting), the “copy/search” button in the iOS version will not disappear unless you agree to copy something (what, you’re not sure since nothing is highlighted to begin with), if you reserve a book and it comes up for your turn to read there is no notification unless you open the app so you may well miss your chance to read said-book, and the search bar still doesn’t work unless you’re in a specific category already. Why mess with something already not successful? UGH!Show lessbluedrag0neyes
Missing many basic features of an e-reader
A) ability to search for words. This is one of the only advantages e-reading has over paper reading, the fact that a user can quickly index ideas they read through
B) ability to scroll through book. Right now navigation controls are at page level or at chapter level. If you want to navigate within a really long chapter you have no choice but to keep tapping incessantly at one side of the page. This is infuriating.
C) ability to copy snippets of text. Another major frustration, if I read a particularly good quote I have no choice except to copy it down by hand and retype it to a friend. You should be able to copy 140 chars or so for the purpose of sharing/saving a quote.Show lessYwriterct
