# APA eBooks — user reviews > 31 indexed App Store user reviews of APA eBooks by American Psychiatric Association, rated 3.00/5 from 99 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/apa-ebooks/id1440599186/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/apa-ebooks/id1440599186.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 35 · 4★ 12 · 3★ 5 · 2★ 11 · 1★ 36 ## Newest reviews (13 of 31) ### 1/5 — Buggy app almost unusable *2023-02-27* It is quite frustrating trying to read a book on this application. Every time I want to use it it deletes my books, puts a book i don’t own on my bookshelf and forces me to sign out, sign in again and redownload my book. It seldom saves the page I am on. Please update APA. This makes the field look poorly ### 1/5 — Unusable *2023-01-24* Nothing like paying for a book and having an app that remains unusable when iOS and the app are updated. This is completely unacceptable. ### 1/5 — Unhappy! *2023-01-08* I updated my app and am still having problems!!! Firstly, my books are not on my shelf most of the time. Bookmarks and last page read are not present when I open a book again. I have to sign out of my account regularly to just get my books (if the show up!) and download them again most of the time. NOW, I cannot get into my book and I’m only presented with the book cover. If your app is this poorly programmed, why don't you just allow users to download books to a more reliable app??? We’re still paying you for the ebook. At this point, I will no longer purchase ebooks on your site. ### 1/5 — Waste of time *2022-11-21* I really should’ve read reviews before purchasing ebook and downloading app. It crashes every time I try to log in. How’s does it look? 🤷🏽‍♀️ ### 1/5 — Unusable! Crashes EVERY SINGLE TIME! *2022-10-26, version 8.0.1* This app used to work for me (albeit very slow) and I would use it regularly as a clinician. But it is completely unusable now and I can ONLY access my eBook purchase on their website (the website is also beyond poorly designed and takes forever to get where I need to go--What should take 5 or 10 seconds to find a reference takes 5-15 minutes). I'd never buy a book from them if it wasn't required for my work. They should make it available on Kindle or a Apple Books, or ANY platform that works and is usable. ### 1/5 — Crashes every time *2022-09-18* I bought the newest version of the DSM and I’ve not been able to read a single time online or on the app because it is constantly crashing 100% of the time. Going to ask for my money back. ### 1/5 — The app won’t open *2022-09-06* I thought I’d try this as it seems to have had an update a month ago. I couldn’t even get the app to open. I’m using an IPad Pro. It seems like for years now this E reader idea the APA has is a complete miss… ### 1/5 — Crashing app *2022-07-22, version 8.0.0* Worst ebook app I am so disappointed at the APA. I have 6 books that purchased from them including the latest DSM 5 TR. Yet I can not access them on either my iPad or iPhone. Every time I try to open any of the ebooks the app crashes. Unbelievable and shame on you APA. ### 1/5 — Useless *2022-01-29, version 6.2* Completely useless ### 1/5 — Can’t login *2021-12-04* Crashes every time I login totally useless. Can’t even get into my account to read anything since it immediately crashes as soon as I log in terrible interface ### 1/5 — Terrible app! *2020-07-21* I’m surprised the APA did such a poor job with this app, given all the resources at their disposal. It has a very clunky reading display. It is awkward and inefficient to read books on this app. I’m used to high quality, user friendly reader apps and this is certainly not one of them. I tried it on two different devices, but had the same poor results. It was an absolutely terrible experience. The worst part is the APA will only allow you to use their app to read their ebooks. For APA books, I will either buy them hard copy or find another publisher with a better solution. ### 1/5 — Terrible interface *2020-07-07* Holding a monopoly on their ebooks is frustrating but honestly not surprising from APA. The interface is awful. I’m an avid highlighter and note taker especially with books like the DSM. It’s so frustrating trying to highlight a line and it trying to scroll or just missing a bunch of words. Hopefully it improves. I’d rather not buy hard copy or have to look elsewhere ### 1/5 — Needs fixing to become great *2020-04-22, version 6.1* Shuts down when you push settings Does not open at the page where you stopped reading, instead keeps going to one random old page ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Terrible app *2025-10-29, version 8.0.4* Makes you log in and download all your purchases after every app update. No other app wastes so much time. ### 1/5 — Terrible App *2025-09-06* I am someone who uses digital copies of books very often. It is much more convenient and I don’t need more clutter around my house. I very much wish that they would make these books available for Kindle, however, you have to use their online app. Given how atrocious the app is, and the online reading experience as a whole, it makes zero sense to me why the book would be charged full price. They should either make these books available for Kindle, at which point I would be happy to pay full price, or-if they are insistent on forcing this horrible app, they should add the e-book experience for free to be included with every purchase of the hard copy as many other publishers do. App is unusable. ### 1/5 — So bad I had to write about it *2024-03-26* I’ve used perhaps a half dozen ebook apps, and this is by far the worst. It crashes regularly, and it doesn’t even save my place when I switch from this app to another temporarily (e.g., to answer a phone call or check an email). What’s worse, if i receive the in-app pop-up display that asks for feedback, it sends a dissatisfied user to an email form to fill out. This would be good if that process allowed me to actually send my feedback! Instead, the app locks up. I’ve never written a review for Apple’s App Store before, but this app was so egregious I had to. ### 1/5 — Buggy app almost unusable *2024-03-13* It is quite frustrating trying to read a book on this application. Every time I want to use it it deletes my books, puts a book i don’t own on my bookshelf and forces me to sign out, sign in again and redownload my book. It seldom saves the page I am on. APA publishing should contract through kindle or kobo. This makes the field look poorly ### 1/5 — So bad I had to write about it *2024-01-27* I’ve used perhaps a half dozen ebook apps, and this is by far the worst. It crashes regularly, and it doesn’t even save my place when I close the app. For a book as lengthy as the DSM, this is unforgivable. I’ve never written a review for Apple’s App Store before, but this app was so egregious I had to. ### 1/5 — Constantly Crashing *2023-12-12* This application requires that I resign in each time for accurate library. It commonly shows books that I don not have and does not show the books I do have in the library. ### 1/5 — Cumbersome and Pointless App *2023-08-09* This app rarely works and when it does it takes forever to navigate it--very poorly designed, but APA refuses to put the DSM-V on a eBook platform that actually works. They have a monopoly on it, and those of us that have to use the diagnostic criteria for work are stuck with it. This is the exact reason I have never bought another book from APA/APPI. The benefit of an eBook would be access to the manual wherever you are and that would be useful with Telehealth, but the slowness of the app (finding and loading the correct pages), problems with login and the app not able to login to my purchases, mean I may as well have bought a paper copy, because it would take me less time to drive to the office or back home to get the manual that to try to get the app to work again...and again...and again. ### 1/5 — Not Audible *2023-06-09, version 8.0.4* Platform is clunky and crashes. APA ebooks would be wise to scrap it and make the ebooks available on Kindle, Audible, and/or Apple Books/Audiobooks. ### 1/5 — Disappointing app *2023-05-08* Apps keeps crashing, no access to books bought at a high price… very disappointed. ### 1/5 — Work Around *2023-05-04* Not that this SHOULD be a solution, but I found that after you down load the app and sign in, if you remove it (delete it), redownload it, and sign back in, I got mine to work (for now). Again, should just work as is, but this works for me for the time being so I thought I’d leave a review in case it works for anyone else. Developers, please fix this. Before I tried this I couldn’t get the app to even open without immediately crashing. I need this book for school and carrying around a 1000+ page book with a chronic fatigue disorder didn’t sound like a swell idea. ## Most praised reviews (8 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Like the app but…. *2024-11-23* I like the app, but the audio reader does not work a lot of the times I’m trying to listen to the ebooks on my shelf. Not sure if you’ll fix that, but when you do I’ll update my rating. Besides that issue, the app is easy to use and I like how the display for ebooks is. It reminds me of kindle. ### 4/5 — Good and Convenient, but… *2023-05-26* I like having digital access to this app but when using it on desktop it is clunky. When you have found a page that you want to look at if you click off the application the page moves up several pages causing you to have to search for the page you were on again. It works better on iPad. I think if there was a pdf download available for the purchases you made, it would make it more convenient for working professions who would be using this app on their desktop computers. ### 3/5 — APA eBooks *2023-07-26* READ THIS - This will solve your problems! I was unable to access my ebooks from this app on my iPad, about FOUR times over the past 2 years! The support staff were nice and courteous, but unable to resolve my issue. After nearly a WEEK of back and forth, I FINALLY spoke with someone that suggested that I delete the App, and then re-install it. WORKED GREAT! This is the answer! ### 2/5 — acceptable, not desirable *2024-03-03* This app works acceptably well on iOS but data (e.g., highlights and notes) do NOT sync across to the online reader for PC. Even on iOS, the app sometimes loads slowly. I wouldn’t use this app except for the fact that I prefer reading e-texts for ease of accessibility and I haven’t seen APA texts on other platforms that work better (e.g., Kindle). Altogether, this is an acceptable app but it’s not what one would expect or want from the APA. ### 2/5 — MD *2023-06-25, version 8.0.4* App crashes doesn’t have good flow. There are many other better apps. Why is APA does offer book with an online option. It’s such a horrible system to buy same thing 2 times if you prefer paper book and online version. ### 2/5 — Crashing app *2023-06-09* Worst ebook app I am so disappointed at the APA. I have 6 books that purchased from them including the latest DSM 5 TR. Yet I can not access them on either my iPad or iPhone. Every time I try to open any of the ebooks the app crashes. Unbelievable and shame on you APA. ### 2/5 — Frustrating *2023-01-11* Still having trouble highlighting and taking notes on my iPad. Seems like this is a problem that needs to definitive and effective repair! ### 2/5 — Crashes on iPad within seconds *2019-09-29, version 6.0* I was using this app to review a textbook for boards, but one day the app started to crash within seconds of startup. It does this reliably every single time. I deleted and reinstalled the app but it still does it. The app was working well before it started crashing. Please fix. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-10.*