Leave a Review Bookends
pandering
The software is beautifully designed to support a scholarly workflow and then, out of nowhere, it interrupts, groveling for a software rating. And then, if you give a low rating, you get follow-on emails complaining about it.
Now back to work. Where was I?oregon scientist
A really great app for academics
This is a great app. It’s actively maintained and updated, and the iPad app has all the bells and whistles like support for multi-window (which is a must if you want to read a pdf and add notes or keywords to the meta-data), slide-over, etc. It’s support for Apple Pencil hand-written notes is top-notch, much better than anything else I’ve tried (ReadCube Papers). All in all, a wonderful app.Show lessProdigyj
PSA for those considering this app
There are many good things about this app. And the support is fast. So no complaints there. However, nowhere in the product description here or on their website do they tell you that the “pro” features do not work, if you have “iCloud optimized storage“ running.
So, to use this with iCloud I have to limit the functionality of my iCloud? This is a total deal breaker for me. And it should have been noted upfront as an issue, I feel.
I did contact the developers and they did refund me the Mac app costs. So I applaud them for that. But this is a major issue and, as a customer, it should have been made clear to me before purchase.Show lessNervousFishdown II
Developer Response
Bookends for Mac was silently updated to force download attachments from the cloud when they were removed by the system because of “iCloud optimized storage”.Bring it to Windows
Really wish it supported other systems. I don’t have a Mac but I haven’t found an app that works better on my tablet.nancy13746
Doesn’t Sync PDFs properly and will delete your entire library
I spend $50 bucks for the desktop version and another $20 for the mobile version just so that this software could delete my entire library. It’s terrible and I wouldn’t put much stock into some of these “reviews.” Please don’t waste your money. I went online and the developer seems to not know how to deal with channges in Catalina, but he’s happy to take your hard earned money for his nonfunctional software.Show lessAirbud22
So great
So Mac like, so greatdarthkt
Wow
I have to say that no app I have ever used ever worked better for what it was designed for than Bookends does for reading PDFs, annotating PDFs, organizing texts, organizing references, finding and building a collection of texts, and building works cited pages. And I mean each of those tasks both cumulatively and individually, ie. not even any dedicated app is better for reading and annotating PDFs without consideration for the references or bibliographical-word processor integrations, etc.
I bought an iPad Pro with apple pencil two only because this app is so extraordinary that it gave me the confidence to finally give up paper copies and annotation.
It blows away Zotero and Mendeley.
I and never submitted an app review before, in decades of wonderful app usage, so this review indexes how actually “moving” this app isShow lessBullBison
Not sold
This seems like a nice reference manager, but I’m not committed to it yet.
The iOS version is too closed, because the only way to get things into the app is.... from inside the app. There are two methods: One, enter a url or doi in quick add. Two, use the programmed searches for Google Scholar, PubMed, et cetera. This might have been ok ten years ago, but not today. I get info on new articles through RSS feeds, email, and more. With Bookends you can’t even browse the Arxiv lists of new entries, because it doesn’t have a full internal browser. This would be ok if there were share sheets to get info in from other apps, but there’s not.
Organization is not great. There are smart folders, which are wonderful, but there is only one level of folders, and they can completely take over the sidebar. There are no tags. I think you can simulate tags by putting info in notes, but I haven’t tried that yet.
What Bookends does, it does well, but overall, I think the app is not modern. A modern app would have nested folders, tags, share sheets, and drag and drop into folders.Show lessQuark Gluon Plasma
Developer Response
We're always introducing new features and capabilities, and some of the things you mention are on our radar for future enhancements.very good but bugs while download the pdf file in Wiley site
It cannot download the pdf file as an attachment file correctly in Wiley publications website，it just open the pdf file in browser but not download it.bricks2019
Bookends WAS a Great App
The features are great and in fact worthy of five stars. But, IOS 13 created an incompatibility with the sharesheet function under some circumstances and Sonny Software simply doesn’t care. I have made many polite requests to no avail. I’ll be happy to revise this rating if the functionality is restored.Show lessLRB55
