SimplyE Reviews

Latest: since updating my app on August 12th, I cannot access any of my books or the catalog and keep being told I need to check my connection. Everything else on my phone is working so it’s not an internet issue.

Previous review: I love the idea of SimplyE - millions of library books at my fingertips! But it falls a little short as an e-reading app. I wish they would add scrolling view as an option instead of just tap to turn. I wish I could see a history of books I have read or reserved so I could keep track as sometimes I can’t read everything on my shelf before the loan period runs out. I wish that books that weren’t requested by someone else would automatically renew so I didn’t lose them (and my bookmark) halfway through even though they’re still available to borrow. I wish there was a % read detail. I wish that the book didn’t close/need to be reopened anytime I switched away from SimplyE /my phone locked for a second. I wish books with images/illustrations didn’t get completely messed up/illegible.

It also seems to have decided just today that my login credentials (as entered and perfectly acceptable in SimplyE for the past six months) are invalid. I can’t borrow or reserve new books and some of my holds and books have disappeared. Very frustrating indeed.

I love the idea of SimplyE, and the few books I have been able to download have been so wonderful and enjoyable. BUT, lately I am growing more and more frustrated that, after waiting days and weeks for reserved books to be available, 9 out of 10 of them I cannot actually “get” from the reservation tab, and those that do make it into my list of books, the majority just won’t download. I will get a note that my book is available to “get”, but then when I press on “get”, it goes right back to my reserved list. And, then for the books that make it to my list of available books to read or listen to, it’s so incredibly disappointing that when I press on listen, I just get an error message or a repeated message that the chapter isn’t finished downloading. I’ve waited days and weeks, still not finished. It’s not downloading. I have reported these problems repeatedly and keep looking for updates for SimplyE… and nothing. I love SimplyE so much and I love to read and listen to books, but lately SimplyE is more of a joy kill than anything.

This is a great app for avid readers. Here’s how it could be better (I hope the developers are reading): 1. A way to gauge how far you are into a book and how much more is left. 2. Email or text notifications when your book is ready (bummer to wait months for a book, then lose it when you don’t see its available). 3. A way to leave reviews of books. 4. A reading log, that shows you what you’ve read to date. 5. An indicator on SimplyE icon when it’s closed that you have a book available. 6. Some notice of how many days you have to check out a book before you loose it. 7. A history of books you’ve failed to check out, and lost, so you can get back in the queue easily. 8. A list of books you’d like to read, to make it easy to check out new ones when you’re ready. 9. A way to email a link to good books to your friends who use SimplyE . I’m sure there are more, but this would be a great start. That said I do LOVE having a book on my phone at all times, for the low cost of paying my taxes. :) Thanks NY Public Library!

First things first: I love SimplyE. I have gotten so much into reading again, and I’m really grateful that it’s so easy for me to read these amazing books in the palm of my hand. My only issues are that 1. there is currently no way to see what books I’ve read/reserved in the past. This is an issue because sometimes I run out of time to read something, it disappears, and I can’t remember what it was. 2. some titles that are widely available at any physical library aren’t there, and there’s no suggestion as to how we might find one, which again seems like it would be an easy fix, given that the library website has this information. A message like “sorry, this title is not available in this app, but there is currently 1 copy at X library” would be a lot more helpful than simply not showing up in the search engine. Otherwise, really amazing app!

Many of the complaints I have are already detailed by other users. For a huge public library system like the NYPL it’s hard to fathom why so many basic functions of other e-readers aren’t in SimplyE. One complaint that I haven’t seen in other reviews (though I only read a few) is that I reserved a book that was unavailable for several weeks, and when it finally was available, there was no direct email or message to me other than a little dot showing a notification in SimplyE , which could easily be overlooked. But there was no info whatsoever about how many days I had to claim it. After 2 or 3 days it was gone, back to reserved status again. I also wish there were an option to renew a book. 3 weeks is just not enough time to read very long books, particularly nonfiction. The one I had on reserve is over 1000 pages, and I’d never get through something like that in just 21 days.

Update: all is fixed and I didn’t lose my books or my queue. Thank you!

1. All the books in my queue now goes into “My Books” tab, with a button to download, even though I know that just earlier today (before the update) I still had to wait for weeks for them to be available for me.
2. When I click “Download”, the button switches to “Read”, seemingly showing that the book has been downloaded successfully and now ready to read
3. When I click “Read”, an error message says “Could not display book - This book is corrupt and cannot be read”.
4. Nothing I can do to fix this error message, including quitting SimplyE .
5. There is no option to remove the books from “My Books”. There’s no other button other than “Download”
6. All other new books that were not previously in the queue also get the same treatment as all the points noted below. None of them go to waitlist. All of them shows that it’s ready to read but when you click it, it shows the same “corrupt” message
7. Why is there no option to report the bug with screenshots???

It’s so frustrating! I agree with the review before me that says that every time there’s an update, SimplyE becomes worse!

The idea is great, however there are glitches and features present in other apps which would be greatly appreciated.
Often it says a book is available but once you go to check it out it puts the book on the waitlist and sometimes does this several times making it impossible to check out a book even when a. A notification comes in saying that the book is now available and b. SimplyE has been deleted and redownloaded. When this glitch is happening, it makes SimplyE effectively unusable.
There are also sometimes glitches with the download process.

Also, Audiobooks can only be sped up to 2x speed which is still painfully slow because of the reading speed of some audiobooks. Making 3-4x speed would be greatly appreciated as well as a space to request that books be added to the catalogue.

SimplyE is absolutely amazing. Why?

1: it doesn’t need internet to work. Yes, internet or cellular service is required to download, return, or browse the catalog, but one can read any already downloaded book with no internet at all. This is important to me as someone without a SIM card, because all my other apps need WiFi connection to work.

2: you can reserve books. this app makes it so easy to reserve books. Just open the book, tap ‘reserve,’ and you can see it in reservations with an estimated time period it will be available in and what number in line for the book you are, as well as the number of copies on hand.

3: you can change the appearance of the text in SimplyE . Forgot your reading glasses? You can easily make the text larger. Want to feel like you’re reading a real book? You can change the text background to that realistic creamy color we all know and love. Or, if you’re reading at night, you can select a black background and white text and adjust the brightness of the screen right there in SimplyE . AMAZING!!!

Probably my most used app and well designed, this app is easy to use, practical, and folks here at this app usually correct any problem I submit a request for within days.

I have downloaded this app for quite some time now, and I want to reassure anyone reading this that I have encountered 0 issues so far. The UI of SimplyE is very simple and easy to use. There are dozens of libraries accessible through SimplyE, as well as a collection by this app. On top of all this, the customer service is impeccable! I once had an unexpected error accessing my titles, so I sent an email reporting my problem. A couple of hours later, I got an email that throughly guided me to the different ways I could resolve the problem. It also had detailed instructions about where I could access my library’s titles, if the problem continues, while they tried to fix it.

All in all, SimplyE is just amazing!!

I love SimplyE .

A few suggestions from an avid e-reader:
It is very important to personalise e-reading. With books and papers I can see crumples and dog-ears. I see where I’ve been. Ebooks are always new. Too new. If you have too many you don’t see where you’ve been.

Let us mark and annotate and save our marks and bookmarks and highlights and notes (or share them?) so that when we look back or even if we check out the same book again, we know where we’ve been and what we’ve seen. It gives us a living record and turns us into truly active readers. I have hundreds of books and papers on my phone and value annotation in all my reader apps (kindle, iBooks, GoodReader, Adobe and Documents). I can look back and see what I thought was important when I first read it.

Kindle also gives a sense of community by letting you see what others have highlighted (ie, the choicest quotes) and allowing you to share. Nice colours (and Multiple selections) as in iBooks makes it even more enjoyable.

If the reader can save those snippets after returning the book they can also sense their own accomplishments with a few choice quotes. It makes it all the more personal.

Thank you.

I see other reviews suggesting lots for different features but the ONE thing I would love is if you could flip/turn the page from the LEFT side of the screen. I hold my phone in my left hand and can’t just use my left thumb to go to the next page (unless I hyperextend it over to you ge extreme right side of the phone). I have to use two hands with SimplyE, one (my left) to hold the phone and the other (my right) to go to the next page. It seems it would be a very simple fix. I hope the developers read this review and change SimplyE in this tiniest way. I can’t be the only person with this little grievance!

When SimplyE is functioning well it’s one of my favorites and my primary way to read when commuting or traveling. The selection is great.
However, there are many glitches and they don’t seem to improve year to year.
Recently SimplyE suddenly put all my reserve books into my main reading tab ready for download- when I did download then it says its corrupt. When I return and hit reserve it goes to download again. This is not the first time this has happened. Last time I had to delete & reinstall SimplyE to get it fixed- losing all my books and having to wait for many to become available again after nearly finishing them or being at the front of the reserve order.
SimplyE has the report an issue section but there’s never any follow up- feels like asking for help into a void.

Like I said I love SimplyE…when it works. I was so excited when I first got SimplyE on my phone (having had it on other devices) when I tried I pressed ‘read’ to my first book a blank page came up with the title of the book in small gray letters on the top (not the cover page, just the actual title) and there was no way to ‘get out of it’ except if you closed SimplyE . I was really disappointed especially since it keeps on happening and I can’t actually read any books. I gave this five stars in hoping that this review comes out on the top and so the developer can address these issues.
Thank you!

I absolutely love the convenience SimplyE provides. You have access to NYPL's extensive ebook catalogue. It's as simple as downloading the book you want, or if it's not yet available, simply reserving a book for download when it's ready.

In my experience the only drawback is like others have said in their reviews: if you select text to copy or look up a definition, the highlighted selection box won’t disappear after you’re finished. It’s a bit distracting until you turn the page.

I think that’s fairly minor though and not a deal breaker. The developers have made consistent improvements over the last several months and I love SimplyE now.

I need and depend on SimplyE. That is why it’s so frustrating that bugs they know about don’t get fixed for months. 1. Frequently when I GET a book but do not download right away, when I go to the book, it’ll say “something went wrong” (brilliantly helpful) or “download expired” or “ this chapter hasn’t downloaded yet, wait….” And yet the title does not retry a download automatically. Oh you say, just hit the download button? No such feature! 2. Downloads stop if SimplyE is in the background, even if you’ve given SimplyE background permission. 3. Your last listening point is not saved reliably unless you force quit SimplyE . If you leave for more than a few minutes, it will restart somewhere before you were last. 4. I could go on…. Maybe I’ll amend later.

Just recently started using SimplyE & it’s mostly good but bookmarks don’t seem to mark the correct page, usually they take me back to the start of the chapter. And on the bookmarks page it tells me what percentage of the chapter I’ve read so far but not which page was marked so I really just have to flip through & scan text which is really annoying.

Also, the search function is really not very good. I have (many times) typed in the exact title of a book that I had already found through SimplyE (or the authors full name, or both) and it will not come up in the list (which will include many books which only contain one word or half the name from the info I entered). This is incredibly frustrating.

Honestly, I’ve got a couple problems with SimplyE. First of all, when I’m reading a book, and go to a different tab, and then go back to this app, SimplyE restarts and I have to wait for the book to load again. I am using SimplyE to study Chinese and constantly have to look up words or make flash cards on different tabs, so this inconvenience is highlighted.

My second problem, as of know, this app is telling me that I can’t access Brooklyn Public Library cause I’m offline, but I can still access the this app books(??). I’ve tried restarting my phone, etc, nothing works. I would reinstall SimplyE , but then I may lose the books that I have checked out.

Lastly, when reading my books, I used to be able to highlight words I didn’t know, but now when I hold down on a word, it doesn’t highlight, and whether it actually lets me see the definition is entirely up to chance

Pls fix these problems. Thanks. SimplyE could be rly great

I have many issues with SimplyE over the last few years. So I was excited when you finally learned that books are numbered sequentially and not by individual chapter. I was happy when I opened a newly checked out book and found that the book I’m starting to read, which every book seller I looked at told me, is listed as 278 pages. WhooHoo, a nice short book.
But, NO. Not this app. You used your inexplicable logic and presented this book as 571 pages!!!!!!!! WHAT!!!!!???????
In what universe do you think this is a good thing?
You seem to have no interest in making this a completely pleasant experience because in reading all the negative comments this year you have not responded to any one of them and certainly have no intention to improve in the near future.

I am a NYPL member and have been borrowing books through SimplyE during the pandemic. I can’t say how much I appreciate the chance to do this! The idea behind SimplyE and the initiatives connected to it are fantastic, period. Still, there are some improvements or bug fixes that I’d like to recommend:
(1) changing the default language of SimplyE messes with the search feature, I think. It shouldn’t.
(2) Add some sorely needed features to the ebook reader, such as highlighting, adding notes, and SEARCHING. Even though some of these features might seem counterintuitive because ebooks are available for a limited period, they’re actually still useful for some (perhaps most) readers.
(3) easy to implement: add a reading history! We want to keep using SimplyE in the long run and keeping track of what we read and when is essential.

Looking forward to giving a 5-star rating soon :)

I love using this to borrow books from the library but the basic experience is still rough, primarily bc every time I leave SimplyE , however briefly, when I go back, it takes me to my book list instead of the book I was reading. It didn’t used to do that unless it had been so long that SimplyE refreshed.

Additional features that would be nice: (1) know how many pages into the book you are (my son uses SimplyE for school and needs to track how many pages he reads and so has to keep track by chapter vs just doing math on what page he started and ended), (2) borrowing history, (3) ability to save a list of books of interest for the future.

One comment would be to keep the last book you were reading open for when you open SimplyE , switch back from another app, or the lock screen. As it currently stands, you have to click back into the book you’re reading. Seems intuitive that you most likely want to continue reading what you were reading and would have to make a conscious choice to get out of that book and read something else.

Also, a gauge of how far you are through the whole book (not just the current chapter) would be very helpful!

Overall great app, though!

For some reason each time stability updates are applied to SimplyE... it’s more unstable? It’s almost impossible to turn the “pages” now, the pages don’t “turn” - they suddenly, rapidly “slide” (which is unendingly disorienting), the “copy/search” button in the iOS version will not disappear unless you agree to copy something (what, you’re not sure since nothing is highlighted to begin with), if you reserve a book and it comes up for your turn to read there is no notification unless you open SimplyE so you may well miss your chance to read said-book, and the search bar still doesn’t work unless you’re in a specific category already. Why mess with something already not successful? UGH!

I started using this app within the last year and am really enjoying having digital access to the NYPL. Some features I would like to see on future versions of SimplyE : a wish list for titles to borrow in the future, a suggestions box for books not yet available, my bookmarks reappearing on repeated loans (I usually don’t finish books before they are due and lose bookmarks when the title is returned), not having to see the ‘book is ready to read’ screen when moving from the this app app to another app & then back to your book while SimplyE is still open (why put in that wall to go through again & again?). Looking forward to seeing more from this!

A) ability to search for words. This is one of the only advantages e-reading has over paper reading, the fact that a user can quickly index ideas they read through
B) ability to scroll through book. Right now navigation controls are at page level or at chapter level. If you want to navigate within a really long chapter you have no choice but to keep tapping incessantly at one side of the page. This is infuriating.
C) ability to copy snippets of text. Another major frustration, if I read a particularly good quote I have no choice except to copy it down by hand and retype it to a friend. You should be able to copy 140 chars or so for the purpose of sharing/saving a quote.

Mostly good. And has made many improvements since it came out. The integration with the NYPL is very good and much more convenient than the old process for downloading borrowed ebooks to the kindle app.

But there a few things that still need work. Here are my top 3:

If I change the font or the orientation of my iPad in the middle of a chapter, SimplyE resets me to the beginning of the chapter and I then have to page forward until I find my place.

Hyphenation needs work. Here’s just one example in the book I just read. The word “designed” was hyphenated after the i. Yes desi-gend.

SimplyE needs to be made more resilient in situations where the WiFi connection is good but the library’s servers, for whatever reason, are not responding. I’ve had crashes and failures to open my book even thought the book I was trying to open was already downloaded.

Ok, still the below and now something else. I know you recently updated because of a bug where books reserved were showing as available. Well I updated but they’re still showing available and if I try reading them I get a message about the file being corrupted. So...update again please?

App is coming along and bookmarks work well! BUT:

1. Selecting text gets weird. The selecting stays on the page instead of disappearing after looking it up, etc. Very distracting! Will stay up for a few pages in the same location.

2. I want to be able to search for specific words! One book I’m reading has an index/glossary, and it’s getting annoying having to go page by page until I find the word in the index I’m looking for.

3. Might be asking too much, but: notes and note exporting would be AWESOME. Maybe that’s a moonshot objective, but they could be specific to a users library account and use local phone memory to store.

Great job guys, you’re doing great! Keep up the updates!!

No notifications unless you open SimplyE so I’m not noticed when I have a new book available for download then by the time I do log in the time to download has expired and I have to rejoin the weeks long waiting list. I also almost always get 2-3 books that become available all at once. Wish there was a ‘skip’ feature so you can download the one you want but skip the others without totally losing your place in line. Would also be nice to be able to extend rental for a few days if needed. Hate having one chapter left and then rental expires and you have to wait to download again to finish the book.