Best App for Readers
I’ve been using Bookly (formally known as Bookout) for years now, and I can’t say that I really use another app more. I’m a huge reader, and Goodreads is nice but this is honestly way better. It lets me keep track of all my books read in a super easy format and the in for graphics of my reading stats are amazing. I have a long streak that I’m trying to keep up, because this app makes me WANT to read more and more. The quotes feature and thoughts feature are both awesome and hilarious looking back after you finish a book.
The only suggestions for the developers I have would be to allow a book to be reread, and maybe even implementing a social feature like Goodreads where you can add other readers and see their books/stats! But beyond that, the developers are awesome and are constantly updating the app to make it better.
Some may see the paywall as annoying, but it’s paid for itself hundreds of times over in my opinion, and if you’re a reader this app is the best thing for us!
The only suggestions for the developers I have would be to allow a book to be reread, and maybe even implementing a social feature like Goodreads where you can add other readers and see their books/stats! But beyond that, the developers are awesome and are constantly updating the app to make it better.
Some may see the paywall as annoying, but it’s paid for itself hundreds of times over in my opinion, and if you’re a reader this app is the best thing for us!
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Seems like a great app however....
Was hoping I could import my PDFs from iBooks. Kinda disappointed 😑
Book lovers dream
This truly allows book lovers to track and see exactly how our book goals are really panning out. Lovely user interface and simply powerful to use. I'm loving it at present.
No More Distractions!
I’m a big fan of BookTube, Bookstagram, Book Twitter, you name it! But those things can be very distracting when I’m trying to read. I tell myself I’ll just scroll for a minute and 2 hours later I’m lost in the black hole that is social media. Since using the Bookly app, I’ve been able to stop that behavior. Since the app tracks my time spent reading, I feel like when that stopwatch is going I have to be truly reading. Which means I’m halfway through the year and I’ve read more than I did last year already.
As a Ravenclaw who loves recording random personal stats, I really enjoy the infographics feature. I use the quotes feature to nerd out and track words I come across that I don’t know and want to look up later. The thoughts section helps me organize notes for my Book Club discussions as well. And since I don’t like annotating in my actual books, I don’t need to carry around an extra notebook because I always have my phone and this app with me.
And my final reason for rating this app 5 stars is that I am a fan of the company. I always see them interacting with the bookish community on bookstagram and have only had positive experiences.
So if you’re looking for an app to help you focus on reading, organize your thoughts, and track some cool stats, I highly recommend this app!
As a Ravenclaw who loves recording random personal stats, I really enjoy the infographics feature. I use the quotes feature to nerd out and track words I come across that I don’t know and want to look up later. The thoughts section helps me organize notes for my Book Club discussions as well. And since I don’t like annotating in my actual books, I don’t need to carry around an extra notebook because I always have my phone and this app with me.
And my final reason for rating this app 5 stars is that I am a fan of the company. I always see them interacting with the bookish community on bookstagram and have only had positive experiences.
So if you’re looking for an app to help you focus on reading, organize your thoughts, and track some cool stats, I highly recommend this app!
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Doesn’t work anymore.
Used to love this app. Then paid for it to get the premium version. Since payment has gone through the app has stopped working. It no longer recognizes books through scanning. Nor can it search by name. Now you can only add books manually. Feeling scammed:(
Please add rereads.
Please add a reread feature! If you want to reread a book you have already read on the app you have to completely delete the book and start again. In the process loosing any thoughts or quotes you saved from the first read.
There should be a way to read a second time without loosing all data from the book or adding the same book twice.
A simple ‘read again’ button that resets the progress tracker to 0% or 0 pages would make this app just a little bit more user friendly. Especially if you are a paying customer.
There should be a way to read a second time without loosing all data from the book or adding the same book twice.
A simple ‘read again’ button that resets the progress tracker to 0% or 0 pages would make this app just a little bit more user friendly. Especially if you are a paying customer.
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Great app! Looking forward to improvements
This is a great app! Easy to use, clean displays, nice and simple. I've only used it for a couple of books but it really motivated me to make time for a hobby that I don't have as much time for anymore. I tend to have a slower reading pace than most, so the infographics were pretty interesting. And it's great being able to see the progress I'm making, especially when I'm reading a 700+ pg book.
There was a tiny bug I noticed when I had to delete an incorrectly recorded reading session (that was my fault), and the page numbers on the page for the book's overall info and the page for the book's reading sessions didn't sync up right. Nothing that's too much of a problem, but it just bothered me a bit. It'd be nice to get that fixed.
Also, I listen to a lot of audiobooks, and that's hard to keep track of on here. I figure I can just mark them as "read in the past," since the app wasn't designed for audiobook listening and etc, but it'd be great if for "read in the past book" there was an option to just quickly put in what day you finished the book, or perhaps which days you were reading it. But that's about it. Overall this is a great app! I definitely regret not getting it earlier tbh.
There was a tiny bug I noticed when I had to delete an incorrectly recorded reading session (that was my fault), and the page numbers on the page for the book's overall info and the page for the book's reading sessions didn't sync up right. Nothing that's too much of a problem, but it just bothered me a bit. It'd be nice to get that fixed.
Also, I listen to a lot of audiobooks, and that's hard to keep track of on here. I figure I can just mark them as "read in the past," since the app wasn't designed for audiobook listening and etc, but it'd be great if for "read in the past book" there was an option to just quickly put in what day you finished the book, or perhaps which days you were reading it. But that's about it. Overall this is a great app! I definitely regret not getting it earlier tbh.
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Response from developer
Hello, When your overall page info is out of sync, you can go to the books edit page and change the current page number to the correct one. We are working on a fix for this.
Who came up with such great idea!
I needed something to know how many pages of a book I'm reading a day and track the progress of the book. Initially, I was using stopwatch and writing the minutes and pages down manually, but then I found this app and it made everything simple and easy. Really loved the idea of this app! You think about something and there is an app for that.
I like so much about this app from the layout to colors, feel and esthetics. Visual data and graphs help me track my progress and encourage me to read more everyday. Finding titles online is really handy, you don’t need to fill up author name and title info or take the cover photo.
For the future updates, we would love to see if there is something we could link this app with Goodreads.
Now, there is something I don’t like, the pattern of subscription. How something so simple is a monthly subscription service? I understand that there are engineers constantly working on it, but there should be at a way to pay one time and may be get some extra features. Since I'm not a heavy book reader, I would not subscribe and then forget about it and keep paying for something I’m barely using. However, I would love to support the app if there is some onetime buying feature may be with just few extra features like the option of adding 10 more books.
Again, thanks to the team for such great app and their work.
I like so much about this app from the layout to colors, feel and esthetics. Visual data and graphs help me track my progress and encourage me to read more everyday. Finding titles online is really handy, you don’t need to fill up author name and title info or take the cover photo.
For the future updates, we would love to see if there is something we could link this app with Goodreads.
Now, there is something I don’t like, the pattern of subscription. How something so simple is a monthly subscription service? I understand that there are engineers constantly working on it, but there should be at a way to pay one time and may be get some extra features. Since I'm not a heavy book reader, I would not subscribe and then forget about it and keep paying for something I’m barely using. However, I would love to support the app if there is some onetime buying feature may be with just few extra features like the option of adding 10 more books.
Again, thanks to the team for such great app and their work.
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Great! Aside from a paywall for features and full screen ads.
Just found out about this app and thought I'd try it. Love the idea of stat tracking for reading. UI I think is well made and everything that the app is specifically designed to do I think is awesome. What's not so awesome is the business model. I understand needing ads for revune when you offer a free product, but full page ads are ridiculous especially when I simply want to just add a book. Secondly the price with what's locked behind the price. For such minuscule feature that do nothing more than expand what's already offered I see no reason why someone couldn't copy everything and, with what's offered for the pro version, and make it free. Or at the very least charge a one time fee. $30 a year for an app is pretty steep when I haven't read anything about the developers planning to add more content through the life of the app. Bug fixes don't count that's should be a given.
There isn't anything the app offers that I couldn't do myself with a pen and paper, it's just math. Again I think the idea is great and I'd love to use it and would be willing to buy it once for a single rate fee. But with the ads that take over the entire screen, and simple, easily replicated features locked behind a paywall, it wasn't worth my continued use. If they decide to change their business model I would definitely give it another shot. Until then...I'll stick to doing everything the app offers myself but for free.
There isn't anything the app offers that I couldn't do myself with a pen and paper, it's just math. Again I think the idea is great and I'd love to use it and would be willing to buy it once for a single rate fee. But with the ads that take over the entire screen, and simple, easily replicated features locked behind a paywall, it wasn't worth my continued use. If they decide to change their business model I would definitely give it another shot. Until then...I'll stick to doing everything the app offers myself but for free.
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Response from developer
Hello, Thank you for taking the time to try Bookly and for your honest review. First of all we agree, ads are annoying and we are removing them starting next update. As for future updates, we have a huge list of awesome features that we want to add, we will do more than just bug fixes.
Great app, iPad version would be even better.
I recently began using Bookout to track some rather dense material I needed to get through and so wanted motivation to do it. I like the layout, concept, and color scheme and look forward to using it as it develops over time. The quotes and thoughts sections could be refined a little to be less clunky (I’ve had crashes after adding multi-line quotes) and the timer buttons while the timer is active would look a lot prettier with just a little bit of brushing up but these are things that will likely improve over time and development. It would be nice to see an iPad version though, as I do most of my reading on my iPad and right now I’m using the 2x zoom version of the iPhone app on it and it’s just not pretty. All in all, a cool, reading stats designated app to get a lifetime unlock for six dollars and I really look forward to seeing it evolve.
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