This app is terrible.
I had to unsubscribe to the service because this app is so bad. The fact that I have to log in every time is slightly annoying, but I wouldn’t mind that so much if it didn’t take forever for a book to load. Sometimes the load screen just freezes completely. I’ve only had this app a few hours and I’ve already had to login multiple times. Sessions should not expire while I’m listening to a book. Such a shame because their library is excellent.
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Incredible collection of classic literature
Very inexpensive access to a huge collection of classic books. Totally worth it compared to purchasing them through larger services.
Great So Far
Works great for me. I see a lot of negative reviews here, perhaps they were pre-update?
Amateurish app
The app itself:
- regularly stops and logs you out
- browsing for titles is poor. The titles are overwhelmingly fiction but this category isn’t broken down further. You just get a non-alphabetised list of titles which you can’t sort or filter, or even limit to your desired languages.
- search is weak but functional. You can’t search by title or author.
- book lengths are often completely wrong by an order of magnitude
- titles are broken down into small chapters usually just named by first line, rather than a book’s actual chapters. There is a several second gap between each of these divisions.
- there is no sleep function, though you’ll likely get logged out at some point if you fall asleep
The titles:
If you’re looking for established classics the range is good, especially pre-20th century. Often there is both an abridged and an unabridged title.
There are also some very low quality titles of the sort you’d expect to find in a bargain bin - outdated self help books and the like. It’s hard to make sense of the editors’ decisions.
I was hoping to use this service instead of Spotify as their audiobooks are limited by time and I’m mostly interest in classics. The app is so off-putting that I haven’t decided yet.
- regularly stops and logs you out
- browsing for titles is poor. The titles are overwhelmingly fiction but this category isn’t broken down further. You just get a non-alphabetised list of titles which you can’t sort or filter, or even limit to your desired languages.
- search is weak but functional. You can’t search by title or author.
- book lengths are often completely wrong by an order of magnitude
- titles are broken down into small chapters usually just named by first line, rather than a book’s actual chapters. There is a several second gap between each of these divisions.
- there is no sleep function, though you’ll likely get logged out at some point if you fall asleep
The titles:
If you’re looking for established classics the range is good, especially pre-20th century. Often there is both an abridged and an unabridged title.
There are also some very low quality titles of the sort you’d expect to find in a bargain bin - outdated self help books and the like. It’s hard to make sense of the editors’ decisions.
I was hoping to use this service instead of Spotify as their audiobooks are limited by time and I’m mostly interest in classics. The app is so off-putting that I haven’t decided yet.
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Just unreliable
Random logouts, stalled streams, failed transfers from one Bluetooth audio device to the next. There is a lot of bad code undiscovered by a developer with obviously flawed test methodology. App can’t recall the last book I was listening to or the place where I left off half the time. Content seems great, if you can get it to play and are willing to tough it out to keep it playing back content. There are not sufficient settings to tune (prev track option on headset should be configured to jump back 10s, not half a chapter.
You should probably just fire your developers, restart from scratch and pay the Overcast people to make you a better app.
You should probably just fire your developers, restart from scratch and pay the Overcast people to make you a better app.
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