Constantly crashes
Crashes every 30 seconds, not an exaggeration, and cuts half the page off.
Trash
Like all half-baked e-readers that work with universities, this company provides half of the features for usability than any free option would have. It also has the wonderful habit of deciding that you are logged in multiple times, and will tell you that you can’t access the textbook you spent several hundred dollars to read.
Unless your school forces you towards this money grubbing pit, avoid RedShelf. It’s as difficult to use and restrictive as you can imagine.
Unless your school forces you towards this money grubbing pit, avoid RedShelf. It’s as difficult to use and restrictive as you can imagine.
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Can’t depend on it
There has been half a dozen times that I’ve needed material and it wouldn’t open. I wish I had spent the money on books instead of this. At least I could reference them!
The password reset is garbage, and downloading for offline, same!
The password reset is garbage, and downloading for offline, same!
Buggy with no offline.
Lots of busy work just to read the book.
It’s a pdf, I get you want to protect copyright, but come on let people have an offline mode. I fly often and would be nice to read. My only option is print everything physically before flying or print to pdf which defeats whatever reason they have for not supporting offline mode.
Other times even with internet it won’t open and print works 50% of the time and only with less than 20 pages at a time.
It’s a pdf, I get you want to protect copyright, but come on let people have an offline mode. I fly often and would be nice to read. My only option is print everything physically before flying or print to pdf which defeats whatever reason they have for not supporting offline mode.
Other times even with internet it won’t open and print works 50% of the time and only with less than 20 pages at a time.
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Just buy Paperback
If you don't have any other choice for digital book just get paperback instead. This app is super buggy at least with PDF type of content. It fails to load forcing me to close the app several times before it works. If you have to buy a digital book and use it with this app- don't spend a little extra for a used paperback.
This app is the reason why piracy is still common. You pay for something that doesn't work.
This app is the reason why piracy is still common. You pay for something that doesn't work.
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Always crashes
The highlighting can be sensitive and erratic if you go back to make edits on them. But the most frustrating part is that the app continues to shut itself down after about 45 seconds. It’s hard to get any reading done when you’re always opening it back up.
Worst reader app - so many bugs
I have to use this app for my textbooks and this app constantly crashes!! I will read maybe a few pages and then it will crash. Or, it will just not load at all. WORST APP EVER
Can’t Download Books and Formatting is Broken
Forced by my textbook publisher to use this low quality app. I’m not sure why we are forced to use these half-baked apps when the Kindle app is available. Trying to download my books and it says unavailable to download until I delete them from the iPad I’m literally trying to download them on.
The formatting is broken. Text is the wrong size and certain letters and words are laid on top of each other and are unreadable Red Shelf wants you to use their PC application as it I’ll be says on tablets PDF notetaking will be difficult. They are not wrong, PDF notetaking is next to impossible on an iPad even with my Apple Pencil. I will be writing the publisher of my textbooks and letting them know that I will not be purchasing another book from them unless they change to either Kindle or a more polished app.
The formatting is broken. Text is the wrong size and certain letters and words are laid on top of each other and are unreadable Red Shelf wants you to use their PC application as it I’ll be says on tablets PDF notetaking will be difficult. They are not wrong, PDF notetaking is next to impossible on an iPad even with my Apple Pencil. I will be writing the publisher of my textbooks and letting them know that I will not be purchasing another book from them unless they change to either Kindle or a more polished app.
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The App id Buggy and Support is a Joke
I purchased a digital textbook for a class that I am taking. It was taking a while to load into my library on the app. I tried to to download a copy of the book to read offline on my iPad and it keeps erroring and telling me that I already downloaded it to my app. This happened on the first and every repeated try to download my book. Customer service was argumentative and ineffective.
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No way these 5 star reviews are real
In a sea of bad apps, RedShelf takes the cake. The fact that you build an app for the purpose of interacting with academic text and the highlight functionality is busted—so busted that you tell people not to use it. It’s like a car without a steering wheel, useless.
Horrible app
I wish all my professors would just switch to Pearson. This compared to Pearson is like comparing roller skates to a Rolls Royce!
Annoying Recent Feature
It’s ok, but I find it really irritating now that every time I want to access a textbook, I have to wait for a confirmation code to be sent to my email. It would be better if that was removed. I understand it as a security feature but it’s so annoying to have to sign in a second time. If I am already signed in, why should I have to do it again to access a textbook?
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Stopped working
The app worked great for two days and now all I get is a blank page even after downloading the book makes it really hard to do schoolwork
Accessibility features are horrible
The read aloud feature has the absolute worst voice selections possible. There is not a single normal American voice. All of the voices are in accents of other countries but they are still speaking in English. Most of the selections of voices are jokes? There are options such as “bubbles” and “bells” where the voices are literally bells or bubbles that you can not even understand. All of the voices are so weird they distract from the text being read. This is a horrible oversight for those that oversee the accessibility features.
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Worse than using the browser
I wanted the app so I could read on my iPad while out and about and offline. I downloaded one book just fine, but the second one failed. It won’t let me download it because it says it’s already downloaded to the device and that I need to delete it, but I can’t do that because… it’s not downloaded. Off to a great start. I turn on airplane mode to test, and I get all sorts of fun errors, including: -Can’t open the book because they’ve changed the terms and conditions that I accepted 30 seconds ago. -“You’re offline!” …Yes. That’s why I downloaded the book to my device. -Some other error I didn’t write down that looks like a “page not found” sort of thing. At least with the browser, it seems to stay loaded as long as I refresh the page shortly before I leave.
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Dumb
Don’t have any choice to use this but I should be able to search my books multiple times in a row without the app breaking. I also shouldn’t have to regularly reinstall the app because it stops loading anything. Happens on multiple devices and has only gotten worse with updates, ridiculous.
Bad functionality
Whatever they did for the last update broke the app. It makes me sign in literally every time I try to open a book and sometimes just to go to a new chapter. Highlighting is broken, glitchy and useless. I hate that students are forced to pay soooo much for these books but then we can’t even open them anywhere besides through this broken app. We should be allowed to use any ereader.
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Have To Constantly Delete And Reinstall
The app is fine when it actually works, but I have to keep deleting and reinstalling it to use it. Frequently, I’ll click on my book just to be met with a white screen without text that doesn’t resolve until I reinstall the app.
Useless
This app is plagued by a critical bug: a blank white page that forces a full reinstall every time it happens. This issue has been known since 2021 and has not been fixed. The lack of updates shows an incompetent team and makes this a useless app. Avoid at all costs.
Horrible program
Truly the worst way to read a textbook. The app (and website) are extremely poorly designed and just get in your way constantly. That is, if it’s even working. Some days, RedShelf just decides that you don’t get to access the textbooks you paid for. If you can, get your textbooks elsewhere
