# ReadAnywhere — user reviews > 233 indexed App Store user reviews of ReadAnywhere by McGraw-Hill, rated 4.60/5 from 10,330 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/readanywhere/id1237370775/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/readanywhere/id1237370775.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 8,514 · 4★ 842 · 3★ 331 · 2★ 135 · 1★ 508 ## What do users think of ReadAnywhere? Overall sentiment: negative **Pros** - 🚀 Convenient for on-the-go reading - 🔒 Offline access to textbooks - 👍 Functional reading experience - 🚀 Fast downloads of textbook chapters **Cons** - 🐛 Frequent crashes and glitches - 🔋 High battery drain - 👎 Lack of user-friendly features - 🚫 Incompatibility issues with devices - 🚫 Unreliable offline access **Commonly reported bugs** - Login issues - Disappearing textbook content while offline - Blurry/low-quality images - Math processing errors - Broken image icons **Most requested features** - Dark mode option - Handwriting/drawing support - Ability to reorder highlights - Customizable text-to-speech voice - Continuous scrolling option - Improved navigation and bookmarking ## Newest reviews (19 of 233) ### 2/5 — It works but super frustratingly *2026-09-07, version 4.7.2* It’s missing basic features like bookmarking and annotation, and the quiz section of books is driving me crazy. There’s questions I can’t see and now my grade is lower because I can’t even see the question I’m supposed to answer. ### 3/5 — Please Fix Fill in the Blank Questions *2026-09-06, version 4.7.2* Every fill in the blank question comes up completely blank so it makes it impossible to complete. ### 4/5 — Definition *2026-09-02, version 4.7.2* Great app it’s just when you try to learn and a click a definition it doesn’t tell you what it means it just a black box and no text about it. But overall great app to read whenever ### 2/5 — Big downgrade from Pearson *2026-08-22, version 4.7.2* College switched from Pearson to this. It’s a real bummer in comparison. The interface is slow, page switching is not smooth. Worst is the images in app are low res, even if you download the content. Haven’t found a way around it without reading via the website, which rather defeats the point. Clicked on several vocabulary words just to see a blank box with a x. Oh, and videos are not imbedded but links that open externally in a browser. Company needs to do better. Feels like I should’ve just bought the physical book. ### 2/5 — Audio Playback needs improvement *2026-08-22, version 4.7.2* This app allows you read anywhere but you have to constantly download the chapters. Also the audio playback functionality could use improvements such U.S. allow you to touch the screen, select where you want to start the audio, setting to skip foot notes. ### 2/5 — downloaded smartbook *2026-07-30, version 4.7.2* I appreciate the ability to do my smartbook assignments on the go while downloaded, however it being downloaded should mean that my concept questions should show up. The fill in the blank questions come up empty with just the text boxes. Not much use. ### 2/5 — Accounting fundamentals *2026-05-13* The ability to zoom in on the really small areas in the pages, then snapshot a section and send to a printer would be very welcome. More stars when the improvements get added. ### 1/5 — Connect is just bad *2026-05-12, version 4.3.1* There is simply nothing good to say. Connect is horrible and teaches nothing really. It’s a tools used by lazy professors that do absolutely nothing and get a paycheck doing it. I guess this is what education has become - no wonder out people are idiots! ### 1/5 — McGraw Hill sucks, so does this app *2026-04-24, version 4.3.1* App signed me out for some reason and wants me to sign back in without using an email. The Adaptive Assignments are available here but every time you want to open it you need to redownload it. Same with the book chapters. The following is my opinion on McGraw Hill’s connect in general and not just this app. The Adaptive Assignments are the worst. They take like an hour to do and are so boring you forget what you are learning. The professors probably like them because of all the data it collects on your performance. Also in other assignments (not tha adaptive ones) they expected us to know material that wasn’t in the textbook. Overall super frustrating 1/10 would not recommend. ### 1/5 — Garbage app, garbage product for people with reading disabilities *2026-04-22, version 4.3.1* There is no way to adjust the color settings for my books and the audio playback snaps back to the start of the chapter if you touch the scroll. It is a nightmare with Apple's Screen Read too. ### 3/5 — Functional yet frustrating *2026-04-19* I teach biology at the college level, and frequently require to access the textbook; during class, when helping students, or reviewing the material privately. The app suffers a few standard QOL features that the developers could hopefully implement with ease: (1) a toggle “view installed ebooks only” would remove all of the clutter; (2) Stop timing us out the minute we leave to do something; it’s “my book” on “my tech”, and there’s just no reason why it can’t remember exactly where I was when I come back. Perhaps this is a memory limitation, but I find that if I swap over to Explorer or a note-taking app, if I spend any amount of time there, and come back, I’ve lost my place and have to scroll through the clutter to find my book again. A harder thing to enable would be a layer that lets me directly write on the book like a PDF reader (or a hard copy!). I miss, very much, the ability to draw and write in the margins, or highlight in my own way. It’s tempting to download a PDF just so that can be done! Otherwise, it’s a solid app that displays the text exactly the way the authors intended. It just needs some polish. ### 3/5 — Needs dark mode *2026-04-15, version 4.3.1* This app desperately needs a dark mode as I can’t study or read materials while I have a sinus infection because the super white pages hurt my eyes and cause eye strain. The ability to download for offline reading is a great feature as is the read aloud toggle though. But the ability to lock the screen would be much appreciated. ### 2/5 — DO NOT UPDATE *2026-04-11, version 4.3.1* This most current version makes highlighting difficult. The boxes around text no longer exist nor follow your pen. You will be highlighting blindly, guessing if you stopped your pen over the correct spot. ### 2/5 — Bad audio *2026-03-31, version 4.2.1* I used to listen to my McGraw Hill books on the Vital Source app, which allowed double speed and background playback—perfect for reviewing a chapter before class. This app requires me to have the app open (draining my battery) and only plays at 1.5x. ### 2/5 — New “Intuitive UI” is way way worse *2026-03-23, version 4.2.1* The reading experience and smartbook assignment experience is still the same, but they jumbled all my assignments together, even ones due months ago. It takes me a long time to find the assignments I need when they used to be at the top. Also, downloading only works for your current session, when you close the app it just forgets that you asked it to download. The downloads don’t take long, but why can’t you just keep them downloaded like you used to and let me offload them manually? I want them to go back, this new app experience is really just not good in the slightest. ### 3/5 — Pretty Bad *2026-03-21, version 4.2.1* The textbook illustrations that involve examples problems are frozen in size and will not size appropriately to small screen. This requires right to left scrolling and never shows the full example. ### 1/5 — Smartbook UI *2026-03-07, version 4.2.1* The Smartbook UI needs to be majorly reworked. There is no order at all so when several books are loaded into the app every Smartbook gets mixed into a single list. Why would there not be an option to sort them differently or even split them by their respective books? Why is there no way to just access the smart books through the reading? It is becoming increasingly frustrating to look through every single Smartbook to find the assignment I need. This is a simple quality of life feature that is beyond common. I was hoping the redesign would include some type of sorting but somehow that issue was missed again. Please just make the Smartbooks sortable. ### 1/5 — Just Bad *2026-03-05, version 4.2.1* For being a textbook app, this is pretty lackluster. First, there is no feature that allows for freeform not taking on the pages. Then there is the fact that you can’t just delete a highlight without going into the highlight menus and hunting for the most recent one. Third, why do I have to download the book every time I open the app? Now, I go in and see that ALL of my highlights are gone? This app is beyond bad, but, this is the publisher most classes choose their materials from. ### 1/5 — DOESNT EVEN LOG IN *2026-02-24, version 4.2.1* It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. It doesn’t log in. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Frustrating bug reader loses its reading position. *2026-09-04, version 4.7.2* When I’m reading a book horizontally on my phone and then switch the screen to vertical, the app loses my last reading position and jumps to a different location. It should preserve the exact page or reading position when changing screen orientation. ### 1/5 — Inconvenient app *2026-09-01, version 4.7.2* This app’s UI is very confusing and it is not suited for studying. I honestly do not know how this app has high rating (little sus if you ask me). You cannot use the native app support for TTS when minimized. I listen to books and study while i commute to school or go somewhere to make my time useful but the accessibility it offers is horrendous. ### 1/5 — 1/5 *2026-07-09, version 4.7.2* I’m using this app because of school. If it was for me I would use the smartbook assignment linked instead of this. Takes long periods to load. Search up words & has trouble loading anything. Can’t skip around because it lags too much. Lets you have a limited amount of chapters before you move onto the chapters. Then after that’s used you have to constantly download the chapters for the smartbook they have. I wouldn’t recommend teachers use this. Needs serious updates. Convenient for the sake of the school material but needs more work. ### 1/5 — Smartbook Assignments Bug *2026-07-06, version 4.7.1* I have to close and open the app multiple times just to open the Smartbook assignment that I want to open ### 1/5 — Broken! *2026-07-02, version 4.7.1* I just accepted the most recent update of the app and it now tells me it can’t find any active textbooks for me anymore. I am a professor and have been using a couple of MH textbooks and was highlighting them and reading the chapters in the app. Now I can no longer do anything and I am concerned all of my highlights, etc are gone! How does this happen in 2026? ### 1/5 — Bad in iPad *2026-07-02* I am sick with experience in iPad. No page separated, not easy to scroll down and could see those expired books even though I am willing to purchase again. Less functions in iPad. ### 1/5 — Where’s my e textbook *2026-07-02, version 4.7.1* Updated app today, now my e textbook is nowhere to be found. What happened? ### 1/5 — McGraw Hill sucks, so does this app *2026-06-19, version 4.3.1* App signed me out for some reason and wants me to sign back in without using an email. The Adaptive Assignments are available here but every time you want to open it you need to redownload it. Same with the book chapters. The following is my opinion on McGraw Hill’s connect in general and not just this app. The Adaptive Assignments are the worst. They take like an hour to do and are so boring you forget what you are learning. The professors probably like them because of all the data it collects on your performance. Also in other assignments (not tha adaptive ones) they expected us to know material that wasn’t in the textbook. Overall super frustrating 1/10 would not recommend. Addition: also, for my book at least, the book was written like ten years after the Adaptive Assignments that go with the book. How do I know that? No one in there right mind thinks that "a sales person physically going to people/offices and showing them how the printer works" is the best way to sell printers in 2025🤦‍♀️ ### 1/5 — 1/5 *2026-06-19, version 4.3.1* I’m using this app because of school. If it was for me I would use the smartbook assignment linked instead of this. Takes long periods to load. Search up words & has trouble loading anything. Can’t skip around because it lags too much. Convenient for the sake of the school material but needs more work. ### 1/5 — It’s hasn’t worked correctly since the update *2026-06-02* I use the app to read books from my courses and it worked pretty good. Until it got updated, now whenever you click on a highlighted term it doesn’t define it for you anymore. Only a blank white screen pops up and the search doesn’t work correctly anymore. Ive tried it on multiple key terms throughout the book and nothing pops up but a white box. I already deleted the app and installed it again but the same issues keep happening. It wasn’t like this until the update. I even contacted customer service for help, nothing was done and I wasted 42 minutes because then the agent decided to disconnect and do nothing. So I got connected with another agent WHO ALSO DID NOTHING. This is actually makeing me have a very unfavorable view about the brands, its products and definitely useless customer service ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Glad to be able to use on my iPad to red and study… *2026-03-25, version 4.2.1* This app is convenient for reading textbooks on the go in online classes and making highlights for studying. ### 5/5 — Hi *2024-11-19, version 3.0.3* Good ### 5/5 — Food food *2024-03-20, version 2.13.4* Very nice ### 5/5 — Audio Function - Life Saver *2023-10-13* Work full-time and go to school full-time, so it’s hard to find time to read/study. This app is a life saver as I’m able to use the audio function between apps, and have this play on the commute in my car. This helps me review/study and get information from text without stressing my eyes. The app also has a great ebook function where it can be downloaded to retrieve during offline mode. I really appreciate this app. ### 5/5 — Doesn’t work on iPhone *2023-02-23, version 2.12.1* App works great on iPad, but my same student account on iPhone doesn’t work at all. Just says I don’t have any books available which makes the iPhone app entirely useless ### 5/5 — Excellent resource when in the go *2021-02-22, version 2.8.1* I’ve only been using this app for a few days but I already appreciate the ability to read assigned chapters while sitting in waiting rooms etc. still need to see if there is more to this app for studying but trying to figure out new app resources can sometimes be that way. Hoping to discover even more learning resources here! Thankful ### 5/5 — Super user friendly *2021-01-27, version 2.8.0* The customer service and the app are both a 10/10. This is the easiest textbook experience I’ve had. ### 5/5 — I like the app overall. *2020-10-12, version 2.7.3* I would the option to change the voices of the read a loud option. Also, the app should allow you to select any area in a page where you can pick up and read using the read a loud option. Right now that option always starts you at the beginning of the page. ### 5/5 — Very intuitive! *2020-03-03, version 2.3.0* It’s what i’ve been looking for! I love that i can download ebook and read on the subway. ### 5/5 — Handy to have *2020-01-07, version 2.2.1* Sure, I prefer using my laptop because my phone is a small screen but sometimes this was the more convenient option. Makes a digital textbook even more portable. Especially with the downloading option for offline use! That was much appreciated when our campus had a few power outages. Also. it’s easy to navigate so it really is no hassle. --- *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 2026-09-12.*