# Cengage Read — user reviews > 253 indexed App Store user reviews of Cengage Read by Cengage Learning, rated 4.20/5 from 4,033 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cengage-read/id6444260893/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cengage-read/id6444260893.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 2,872 · 4★ 367 · 3★ 178 · 2★ 62 · 1★ 554 ## What do users think of Cengage Read? Overall sentiment: negative **Pros** - 🚀 Easy to read textbooks - 🚀 Convenient for on-the-go learning - 👍 Useful for listening to audio while commuting - 👍 Allows highlighting and note-taking **Cons** - 🐛 Buggy and glitchy - 🔥 Poor text formatting and layout - 👎 Difficult to navigate and use - 🔒 Login and account issues - 🔍 Missing key features like split-screen and assignment tracking **Commonly reported bugs** - Frequent crashes and sign-outs - Inconsistent highlighting and note-taking functionality - Inability to view full pages and content - Text-to-speech feature not working properly **Most requested features** - Improve text formatting and layout - Add split-screen support for note-taking - Enhance accessibility features like text-to-speech - Integrate assignment and due date tracking ## Newest reviews (13 of 253) ### 2/5 — App won’t load ebook *2026-08-17, version 2.0* I’ve been at this for over an hour with signing in and out, refreshing, uninstalling and reinstalling and nothing. It won’t even let me search for the book in the search bar. As someone constantly on the go I can’t always have my laptop on me so being able to at least access the book through the app to read would be nice. ### 4/5 — Review *2026-07-10* Great app, an improvement would be the ability to copy text while within the mobile app. Otherwise I like that I can have offline access. ### 3/5 — Improvements made but not perfect *2026-06-29, version 1.1.1* Will sometimes glitch and highlighting won’t work or some pages won’t allow highlighting at all which means you can’t save notes either. Really hate that it won’t allow you to copy. Would be convenient to enable that feature so learner can copy and paste questions into search engine for further research. ### 3/5 — Constantly Freezes *2026-04-23, version 1.1.1* Decent e-reader app but freezes constantly and the search feature is helpful but doesn’t find all the matches and then you have to manually swipe around to search on your own. Love that I can highlight things though. ### 4/5 — Managing Human Resource *2026-03-24, version 1.1.1* This experience would be SO MUCH BETTER if the audio was synchronized to the text to flow as natural reading and in different voices. ### 3/5 — Mind tap *2026-02-19, version 1.1.1* Really wish there was a way to do the mind tap simulations on the app!! Would make school on the go so much easier!!! ### 4/5 — Would it be possible? *2026-02-16, version 1.1.1* I just wish I was able to play some of the videos that are shown in the textbook online via the app if I’m away from my computer and or laptop. (Overall good experience) ### 4/5 — Helpful *2026-01-30, version 1.1.1* I have found the book helpful and not too many updates. ### 2/5 — Worst Sounding Reading voice *2026-01-22, version 1.1.1* Everything works and I do like the interface but why is the reading voice soooo bad. It literally sounds like Windows 7 text to speech reading voice ### 2/5 — Meh *2026-01-22* Other apps are more convenient, the fact the text doesn’t stay open all the time and I have to consistently wake my phone and can’t have it continuously open with low power mode on is annoying , every time a required text book is on this app I sigh heavily ### 2/5 — Frustrating *2026-01-21* It’s crazy that the problems from 2 years ago are still happening now. This app continues to not function properly (I won’t even being to mention how awful the website version is). Between highlighting not working numerous times, definitions will randomly glitch open and you can’t close them which blocks the text on the page. Please fix these bugs. We are paying so much to use this platform and it is hindering our ability to learn. ### 1/5 — Can’t even sign in *2026-01-19, version 1.1.1* I can sign in on a laptop but I cannot sign in to use the app. My password isn’t incorrect, the app just doesn’t let you. ### 1/5 — Buggy *2026-01-13, version 1.1.1* Buggy. I do like the AI read out loud feature though. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Waste of time *2026-07-09, version 1.1.1* How can you not initiate the read aloud from the text or page you left off, it starts all over … maybe i want to relisten to a certain section… nope can’t do that. What a trash app considering i have unlimited. ### 1/5 — Terrible app *2026-06-02, version 1.1.1* Won’t let me see my books ordered through here on my phone ### 1/5 — Best for Reading Only *2026-04-22, version 1.1.1* This app is best when you only want to READ your textbooks on your phone or tablet. The text to speech is very robotic and frequently glitches, sometimes not even loading between pages. I often have to refresh just to keep it working. And the basic features like highlighting and taking notes are not user friendly. ### 1/5 — Unclear purchases *2026-04-16, version 1.1.1* When purchasing a book, it makes it extremely unclear what exactly you’re buying. It’s so ridiculous that when I called customer service they were also unclear on what I bought and how I ended up not having e-book access. It ended up resolving itself with no help from customer service. I pray to God I don’t have to buy another book through these guys. ### 1/5 — Glitches galore *2026-04-08, version 1.1.1* Cengage is used in my graduate program and I thought the app would be helpful when I’m away from my desktop. It doesn’t work 90% or more of the time. On startup, an “Error” message pops up. The app will not load my textbooks on the dashboard and pops up with the same error message. The same message also happens every time I hit the refresh button. If a miracle happens and the textbooks DO appear on my dashboard, good luck getting them to download. More often than not, it freezes trying to download and will not be fixed by restarting the app completely. Sometimes these issues are fixed by logging out and logging back in, but for the majority of the time, it doesn’t work even after doing that. It is the least useful app I’ve ever tried to use. Not to mention it almost never gets updated. At this point, I can only access my books from a web browser, so if I’m ever without service or internet, I won’t be able to read the textbooks. Wish this app would work better because it could be so good! ### 1/5 — Citing *2026-02-28, version 1.1.1* This app makes it very difficult to cite any pages. You are unable to check which page you are on and you cannot easily navigate through the book. It seems that the pages are separated by subject matter rather than book pages. I think I would have a real book, or Vital Bookshelf. The school uses Cengage. ### 1/5 — Poor multi-tasking support *2026-02-06, version 1.1.1* I have this app on my iPad. It bugs out heavily when I go into windowed mode. What I want to do is to have my textbook up on one half of the screen, with my notes app on the other half. What ends up happening is that the book pages either spazz out, or my Goodnotes or Microsoft word app gets shoved away. I’m unsure if it is a deliberate design choice, or if the app is just unoptimized. Either way, it is incredibly frustrating. ### 1/5 — Frozen and no developer response *2026-02-01* When you’re busy studying and doing your assigned readings, the last thing you want to worry about is an e-textbook app glitching. The footnotes are frozen, there is no way to export notes, or combine highlighted texts or anything like that. When companies take over textbooks and then make them hundreds of dollars in an effort to encourage people to use their app or their e-readers, one hopes that the alternative functions well. It does what it needs to do, which is allow users to read their textbooks, that the users can do what they need to do, which is complete assignments, look up texts, references material. But this app and Cengage can’t seem to meet that standard to just work. It just doesn’t work often enough to make this a good option. Cengage charges how much for textbooks? Yet, can’t create an app that works most of the time. EDIT: I just went down and read the reviews, and there are barely any developer responses to glitches, bugs, user experiences problems and app issues. Way to be on it Cengage. ### 1/5 — User Experience *2026-01-23, version 1.1.1* Trying to do course work on this app makes me want to punch a wall. Every time I scroll up or down it opens the side bar and I have to close it. This gets VERY annoying when I have to do this 20 times for one assignment. This could easily be fixed by putting a button that opens the side bar when you actually need it. ### 1/5 — Frozen *2026-01-21* When you’re busy studying and doing your assigned readings, the last thing you want to worry about is an e-textbook app glitching. The footnotes are frozen, there is no way to export notes, or combine highlighted texts or anything like that. When companies take over textbooks and then make them hundreds of dollars in an effort to encourage people to use their app or their e-readers, one hopes that the alternative functions well. It does what it needs to do, which is allow users to read their textbooks, that the users can do what they need to do, which is complete assignments, look up texts, references material. But this app and Cengage can’t seem to meet that standard to just work. It just doesn’t work often enough to make this a good option. Cengage charges how much for textbooks? Yet, can’t create an app that works most of the time ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Great Update *2026-08-12, version 2.0* The new update was needed. The voice reader works so much better. Much smoother application. ### 5/5 — Do it *2026-06-08, version 1.1.1* Down load it. Saves so much time and very interactive and no they didn’t pay me for this review ### 5/5 — Great accessibility *2026-03-16, version 1.1.1* I can log in from both of my devices on the mobile app depending on what I’m doing. I love that I can seamlessly listen to my textbooks without having to bring my laptop everywhere to access the website. This is honestly making online college textbook reading a breeze now that I found the app! ### 5/5 — Thank you *2026-02-16, version 1.1.1* This app is awesome I use it often because it helps me to study. ### 5/5 — Thank you *2026-02-11, version 1.1.1* This app is awesome, I use it often . ### 5/5 — Niko *2026-02-08, version 1.1.1* I like that we can listen while we work or do things the course reading. I’m not a great reader and this really helps. ### 5/5 — Awesome! *2026-02-02, version 1.1.1* Love it! ### 5/5 — Great! *2025-11-07, version 1.1.1* Super helpful to use with multiple classes that I’ve taken. ### 5/5 — Cognitive Psychology *2025-11-06, version 1.1.1* $69.95 was the rental price. I am leasing it digitally under December 26. ### 5/5 — I dint know they had phone app *2025-11-01, version 1.1.1* This is a life saver for someone who doesn’t always have their computer --- *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 2026-09-15.*