ReadAnywhere Reviews

by Caleewa

I rely on etextbooks because with kindle and other PDFs I can have my phone read the pages aloud to me while I am cooking, cleaning, commuting and managing my family. Moreover, I have issues with my eyes where I cannot stare at screens for long periods of time so I reserve screen times for when I have papers and online research. I can understand not allowing copy and pasting for copyright reasons but spoken screen and spoken content with iOS does not work at all for ReadAnywhere which is absolutely absurd. Why would you prevent people that can’t see digital content very well from being able to have the content read to them?!?! If I were any more blind than I currently am I would not be able to use ReadAnywhere at all so those with vision impairment should STAY AWAY!! The “highlight and speak” feature worked the first day I tried ReadAnywhere and has not worked since, a feature that is also poor because you cannot pause long segments so you have to highlight very short segments at a time (which is extremely inconvenient when driving). Since that KY worked one time I have deleted and redownload ReadAnywhere 5 times and it still dies not work. I hope professors in the future will stay away from McGraw Hill products all together because the snout of money paid for this textbook and the lack of accessibility is absolutely outrageous.

by Chuck_zilla

I had ReadAnywhere for a little over a month before experiencing difficulties. ReadAnywhere worked well initially and showed to be very useful. However, after a month, ReadAnywhere managed to lose its data, requiring me to re-download the book entirely to view offline. I then lost several features, mainly the search feature. I assumed it was a mild error and uninstalled ReadAnywhere and then reinstalled it. Once I reinstalled it and logged in, ReadAnywhere said I no longer had access to the book. After being on the phone with customer support for 30min. Nothing was resolved, only more frustration. Now I’m supposedly waiting for the engineer team to get back with me. For me, being able to view offline was huge, I don’t always have access to internet and now my studies are limited because of this issue.

by T.C.2000

How a Textbook company cannot make the "Connect" website mobile friendly is beyond me. Plus, I have issues with the site outside my mobile experience. If this is their attempt at mobile friendly it is hands down one of the worst I have ever seen. I have to constantly switch between landscape and portrait modes to be able to skip questions or submit assignments while on a mobile device. I have noticed they place videos on each question, but the videos rarely have anything to do with the question being asked. You'll need to skip one or two questions to find the relevant video. I have issues with words overlapping or it displaying a couple letters before going to the next line to finish each word down the whole page. There is no excuse to not have a user and mobile friendly website during our society as it stands today with technology. I would not recommend wasting time or money with ReadAnywhere unless you're required to for class. That is even questionable. This website has made me so mad. I'm supposed to be doing homework, but I'm so frustrated with the site that I had to write this review.

by Kaylee1224

I don’t understand how such a big company like McGraw Hill could come up with such an utterly lousy app. I would give it 0 stars if I could. I am being forced to use ReadAnywhere for school because of school, but if you have ANY CHOICE WHATSOEVER, DO NOT USE ReadAnywhere. You’re better off taking pictures of every single page of your textbook and using photos on your phone than using ReadAnywhere.

The entire app is the most inconvenient and poorly formatted. First of all, “continuous scroll” is the only option. I put continuous scroll in quotes because it isn’t even continuous. The pages are all strangely different lengths and the application stops you at the end of a page so you have to swipe multiple times before you can access the next page.

Moreover, the markup features are absolutely pathetic. There are very few markup options; they have four highlighter colors and don’t even have a handwriting option. Also, seeing as ReadAnywhere is geared towards iPads, the fact that Apple Pencil does not work with it is absurd. You also have to select the text you want to markup by dragging your finger around for an unholy amount of time before the markup options even show up, because as i mentioned earlier, you cannot draw on the book with Apple Pencil.

by Sompots

The fact that a textbook company has managed to make the most obscure, unhelpful, confusing system of ebooks and apps is just ridiculous. It is so not intuitive. I am an adult learner trying to work and study and I was excited to have the playback option. 2 minutes into it I have a headache, it reads in the most robotic, unnatural, distracting way. The screen stays in and if I touch it it stops and I have no clue where it left off. Can’t make notes while using it either. I use Cengage for another class and what a difference. If you have to use a McGrawhill text then you have no option. But if you can, look somewhere else.

by Woody_14

ReadAnywhere worked well for about 5 weeks into the term and then anytime I was offline the content was missing and the library within ReadAnywhere said nothing is there. The only way to access the book was to be connected to WiFi or the internet. Contacted the McGraw Hill staff and they passed it around. Gave the typical “delete and reinstall ReadAnywhere ” which I had already done and still had the same issue. The problem got passed on to an engineer and it’s been another 5 weeks and the term is pretty much over and I haven’t heard any response. I will avoid using these ebooks for school in the future and will
Hopefully be able to use other platforms for text books in the future

by WARNING>>>>

I am forced to use ReadAnywhere through school. I do not personally care for it. I will also be giving the school feedback on on ReadAnywhere.

Things that need to be replaced/fixed/updated:

1. I use the Read Aloud function in other apps and get a nice voice that doesn’t sound like a computer. ReadAnywhere gives you no options to change the voice. I am stuck listening to a crappy computer voice. I hate it. It makes the context hard to follow and hard to want to listen to. I can’t stare at a screen for long, so I can’t even read it much on my own.

2. When using the Read Aloud function, if you touch the screen to move the page up, the Read Aloud function shuts down. It needs to stay open and allow us to move the page for better viewing.

3. The Read Aloud function will not let you choose where to start. You move the page to the start of whatever chapter you want, but if you need to start in the middle of a paragraph, you can’t. I should be able to put a curser on the section/word I want to start with be able to start the Read Aloud option.

by Zer0-Penguins

The title of the application is a false advertisement. Get a hard copy and tell your teacher why her class is back by the upper echelon of bureaucratic society. internet is required to read “anywhere “ BUT when you need it. So make sure you are a rich collage student if you need this application. It total trash and I feel pity for others that require it.
I feel like the zealots are winning the battleground of education and we are the subjects of the lost and financially raped Society of students. So haul and salute to the masters of our Financial demise. My wallet is raped thank you for Subjugating your required trash material upon educated opportunists and thank you Apple for sponsoring trash applications. I am fully disappointed in the representation of your product and do not trust your brand or label or whatever legal bull you feel to call your self.

by Selvius

Resource linking that is invariably wrong, requiring hunting through several pages of text. Incredible battery drain and sluggish performance even on iPad Pro. Frequent crashes and invisible questions/fields. No ability to search text, or omit formatting and captions from audiobook feature. All this wouldn’t be quite so bad, except the “new” connect books require app use in iOS, and students have no choice to move to competitors. This is quite clearly a product (and service) designed to do the absolute minimum to meet the desires of institutions and professors, and not the needs of the end users. Perhaps it’s time to end the publisher stranglehold on the education market?

by Britjr7

Would there be anyway to enhance ReadAnywhere to be able to make audio reading easier. Instead of highlighting the text and pressing the speaker to read. Maybe an option to play by chapter. I downloaded this because I thought it was set up that way and would work well when my hands aren’t free and I can listen to the book instead. If that is possible this will be truly an amazing app. But until then it’s hard to use.
Doesn’t help when I’m driving and want to hear as I drive a lot with my job. It won’t play over my car just through headphone or out of phone itself.

by XXBookLoverXx

I a using ReadAnywhere on my macbook, purely because i cannot reach the online book without ReadAnywhere. McGraw does not have an option on opening the book on the website for the macbook. ReadAnywhere can be very frustrating to use with the macbook. I have had several glitches with highlighting and other options(option appearing then disappearing when i move my mouse, so i cannot click the option), it struggles with taking notes. It does not like to move page to page fluently like it does as an app on the Iphone. Its just extremely frustrating when I have an exam due in 4 days, and all ReadAnywhere wants to do is act up. I don't have a hard copy of the book, so when it comes to ReadAnywhere it is so very frustrating.

by Wholenut

Seems to do the minimal of what’s needed. Download for offline use, highlight text, underlines text (wish you could choose the color for underlining!...just does black, so it’s difficult to tell if you did it or if it came with book), and add text-notes to specific words/phrases that you highlight. However, ReadAnywhere could be MUCH more dynamic.

Functionality that would give ReadAnywhere a 5 star:
-The ability to write/draw with finger/stylus!
-pre-made shapes/figures
-add text boxes so we can fill white sides next to e-book text
-Highlight ability simply by sliding finger over desired text (like iBook)

If we are required to use an e-book for our courses, then McGraw Hill apps should give us close to the same functionality as a real/physical book.

I want to be able to make “mark-up” additions to the e-book like I can in iBooks (iOS is capable of these functions; please make ReadAnywhere capable as well).

I want to be able to draw arrows between paragraphs, and I want to add in text boxes that overlay onto white spaces near book text.

Most especially with Chem books, there are a lot of equations, and in my mind, I need to draw connections between what the text is saying and how the equation is manipulated to answer the question.

Since more effective learning is the main goal of this publisher, please make ReadAnywhere more dynamic and give us more functions than physical books could ever give us =)

by Krystalontheshore

They now offer 4 colors to highlight, circle, box, and underline. I would like to see a handwriting option soon. Also, I wish I could reorder my highlights instead of always starting with the first one. The reason is bc sometimes I change my mind on how I want to categorize the selected text since I use a color-coded system, and when I change my mind, I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the Highlights section to delete it and re-highlight. That, or add an Erase function as an option to save time. Otherwise, once you get used to the functions, it’s actually not so bad. I have used an Apple Pencil and a stylus with ease.

by NicMead

I love having my book on hand whenever I am out of my house. You pick up where you left off! You can still highlight and everything. The only flaw I see is the reading to you option. If you want the book to read you the section, you must highlight it like when you go to copy/paste. If there was a way to have the book read starting on whatever page you left off on then stop where you finish having it read out loud, I would give it five stars. No other complaints!

by Zambranod

I have been using ReadAnywhere for a long time with no issues but lately when I try to download a new chapter in my book it keeps saying “the file failed to unzip”. It only happens with the new chapters. All the old chapters can be downloaded with no issues after I delete and reinstall the application. I hope there is a solution to this issue soon because I need to read the book while on the go and I can’t carry this heavy paper book everywhere.

by Zoeli56

ReadAnywhere works well for my purposes. I am able to use the audio function to listen to my text books, which is helpful since too much screen time and/or reading triggers migraines for me. However, I can not exit ReadAnywhere or lock my phone while listening to a chapter. Thus the screen stays on and lit-up the whole time, the touch screen is active, and the battery is quickly drained if not plugged in. The smallest accidental tap of the screen causes the audio to stop and you can’t pick up where you left off. You have to start the entire chapter again. It would be helpful if one could navigate away from ReadAnywhere or lock the screen and still have the audio running.

by Rockin' Awesome Mom

I will echo some of the other reviews - ReadAnywhere is functional. I love the audio play of the text, but it would be so helpful to be able to hear the audio while not actively looking at ReadAnywhere . Not having to actively have ReadAnywhere as the top window would be extremely useful and would allow a student to listen as they take notes their notes in another app.

by Qwaeszdxcftgvhyubnjimklop

Great design, great functionality.

So easy to navigate between sections, highlight important bits, and browse my highlights/bookmarks.

I'm honestly surprised: my desktop browser experience with all things Connect related is often a miserable one, but this is something else.

Update2: developers reached out to me, thanks for that! Here are more details on the issue I had, hope this helps:
--the textbook is called "Ross, Corporate Finance: Core Principles and Applications, 5e (ebook)".
--I had downloaded it in its entirety for offline use through ReadAnywhere
--I was connected to wifi at the time.
--iPad Air 1, 16GB, iOS 10.0.2.
--The error message appeared in brackets, with red colored, italicized, regular sized font: "[Math Processing Error]".
--At the time, I was reading about financial ratios in Chapter 3, and the error message had replaced every instance of math equations.
--I removed and reinstalled ReadAnywhere , restarted my iPad, and have not seen the error message since then.

I have, however, noticed a second issue: throughout the book, there seems to small red "broken image icons". Let me know if there's a way I can send you screenshots of this.

by Anolddogtryingtolearn

I’ve only been using ReadAnywhere 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 ReadAnywhere for studying but trying to figure out new app resources can sometimes be that way. Hoping to discover even more learning resources here! Thankful

by MkMar0321

I would the option to change the voices of the read a loud option. Also, ReadAnywhere 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.

by Gfhardin

Developers - HEY! Devs! I have a simple request. In those boxes where you put tables that you have cleverly made scrollable - so they fit on any screen of any orientation, there is 1 super huge problem. The row names get scrolled out.
How can I keep track of the numbers I am looking at if the labels are always off the screen?
I like that I can slide through the data L to R, but when I have 15 rows of info, it makes it tough to absorb stuff when I have to keep going back and figuring out what each number is.

by Alexofbrien

I love the ability to read my text book on my phone wherever I am. It does seem a bit slow at times while navigating but is great 95% of the time. I wish the chapter navigation tool had a bit more differentiation between primary subjects and paragraph subjects. Another tool that would be great would allow me to use something like a back button to go to my previously read space before clicking a link

by Pheb12

Great e-reader, so far it has worked flawlessly for my digital text books. However it is pretty basic (you can’t mark-up or annotate directly on the pages, but highlighting, underlining, bookmarks, and definitions are still available with a simple tap) I’m not sure why there are so many negative reviews... my professor made this application a direct requirement for the course and I’m glad he did.

by Dodoigv

I love all the features that are offered through ReadAnywhere. Whether is be accessing my assignments online or offline and also having the capability to access my ebook if I do not have WiFi. I love that I can have my ebook read to me. That’s an extremely helpful feature! Overall, a great app! I can’t wait to see what else McGraw-Hill Education has to offer to students in the future!

by Tkhoffman

The read anywhere app is an absolute MUST have for students using McGraw-Hill! ReadAnywhere gives you the access to read your textbook anywhere and anytime without the pain of carrying the book with you! Say goodbye to the stress of getting caught up and wishing you had your books with you because with Read Anywhere you have access to your books ALL the time!

by Good Ol' Butter Boy

The this app app has helped me study vocabulary on the way to an exam, brush up on the chapter on the way to class, and given me a way to get required reading done whenever it is most convenient for me! I definitely recommend it to students that could use a tool as convenient as this to read their textbooks on the go!

by Haleyyyyyyyyyy...y

The read anywhere app has made it so easy for me to fit studying into my schedule. Now I can pull out my phone or iPad and study during my morning commute or in between classes to utilize my time smartly and save me time later. Now I can get more studying done during the day and have more free time at night.

by Leslie7101

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.