Apple Books Reviews

by DME_Ski

iOS 15 has been a really buggy update whether it’s on my iPad or iPhone. It has terribly affected Books in the following ways: (1) The Book App keeps reloading my PDFs, etc. each time I open it. I’ve restarted my devices and it still does this. (2) Since the iOS 15 update (and the latest fixes to the iOS) not all of my stuff in Books is syncing properly across my devices and even my iMac. I regularly (like weekly or more often) back up my devices to the iCloud, so why is this happening? I’ve already lost a few PDFs because of this. (3) Since the latest iOS (and subsequent updates to it), I keep getting in the Books App that my iCloud Storage is Full. I pay for 50 GB of storage monthly and have only used up 8.8 GB to date. And that is the total of backing up all my Apple Devices, so I shouldn’t be seeing “Your iCloud Storage is Full”. In fact, I wonder if this iCloud Storage Full glitch is part of the problem why the stuff in my Books App is not syncing correctly. I’ve looked all of this up online and many others are having the same problems. People are warning others not to update yet to the iOS 15 update. I wish I would have listened. PLEASE PLEASE fix this. Thank you!

by Gika Salama

I used to have this application to have books read out loud but after the new iOS it’s gone crazy , did used to highlight the sentence of where I am reading but now it highlights the whole page, i usually have the book starts reading at the beginning and it reads it continuously but now it stops at each chapter which is really annoying, i used to mark the page where of I stopped the book and then I will just ask it to be read out loud when I want it to start again but now I have to start at the beginning of each chapter I can’t do it from the page ,now it has to be at the beginning of each chapter. One other thing that keeps happening is that the application keeps removing and deleting some of the books from it and sometimes whenever I am downloading a book it’s telling me I don’t have the space even though I have a lot of storage left and it deletes the books in it without asking or anything. Please fix this .

by DRM 87654383557

I have about 1000 pdf’s that I created using Apples “Pages” App. I store the pdf files in Apples “Books” app in different collections

My problems:

1) AppleBooks is continually crashing after 10 to 15 seconds of opening AppleBooks . So my pdf files are not available when I need them.

2) The number of books in each collection is not correct … and does not reliably sync with iCloud. I have one collection that contains 510 pdf files. That is what is shown on my iPhone. But on my IPad it shows 50 or 55 or 80 …. It’s always changing but is never close to 510.

3) I have spent hours rebooting my iPad, resetting network settings, uninstalling/reinstalling the “books app”, turning off/on books in iCloud, turning off/on iCloud to try to get my pdf files to properly appear on my iPad …. But only a fraction of the files appear (but they do appear on my iPhone).

4) Because of all of these problems, I would like to create an inventory list of all the pdf files stored in books. But Apple gives you no tools to do this.

5) The name of AppleBooks “Books” is a STUPID choice. Such a generic word makes using search engines to look for solutions spit out all kinds of unhelpful references

6) There is no method that I can find to sort my pdf files by size on my ipad.

It really irritates me to waste so many hours trying to access my pdf files …. With no fix as of this writing.

by RK19590

I have never written a review before but iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 have rendered Books utterly USELESS, making my iPad Pro extremely annoying for my primary purpose…reading books. Problem: The more highlighted (using Apple Pencil 2) the pages of an ebook (especially E-Pub format) are, the laggier the response time. This renders reading a book next to impossible because any gesture (especially turning pages) performed on the screen will take multiple seconds (sometimes 25 secs) to respond. This bug was NOT at all there in iOS 14. It is an iOS 15 problem. It is escalated only when text is highlighted using Apple Pencil 2. Tests done: 1. Upgraded to ios15 & Restored my iPad Pro from my Mac. 2. Factory Reset my iPad Pro to iOS 15 3. Tested the same on iPhone 13 Pro Max Results: Books FAILED to perform for every iteration of Test above. Test results successful: 1. Downgraded to iPADOS 14 using Apple signed IPSW Please fix the problem of VERY laggy books, the more highlighted the text are.

by Dave McA

Apple doesn’t seem to care what it puts out for its users. I remember back when it’s proud and truthful motto was “It just works.” They would be laughed at if they used that advertisement today.

I cannot begin to list all the deficiencies of AppleBooks. My biggest complaint is that it just cannot handle a sizable collection of books. Categorizing them and for searching for titles in the list is so frustrating.

AppleBooks cannot be prevented from offloading files, so that for example using an iPad and going out into the field on a photo-taking mission, while relying on AppleBooks to hold the PDF of a needed instruction manual for my camera results in failure. I end up out there with no wifi and no instruction manual — the manual has been offloaded, though there’s plenty of space on the devise. AppleBooks doesn’t have a switch to cause any files or specific files to be kept. Zero thought went into the design.

by Imhisjoy3

I recently wrote a review for iBooks but I’m writing this again because I am so irritated that the page numbers were removed from AppleBooks that I’m seriously feeling hostile! Who does that? I was looking for something in an old book I purchased and the page numbers are at the bottom of the book. The little horizontal scroll (not real sure what the official name is) that moves you through the chapters was still there. But the new book I’m reading doesn’t have either. I’m trying to get back to the page I was on but have to flip through the pages until I get to the bookmark. Thank goodness I marked my page before I left it! I can’t imagine what anyone was thinking to get rid of that but clearly they weren’t! AppleBooks is rapidly headed to the bottom of the heap. Considering it was once my favorite app that’s pretty bad! Forget worrying about how great your camera is and do something about other parts of the phone!

by Folk-fan

Whoever did the cloud UX for AppleBooks is incompetent. What is the point of the “download” button if less than 24 hrs later whatever I downloaded is back on iCloud only, not available offline? I airdropped myself several PDFs I need to study on an upcoming flight. They’re free govt publications. Night before my flight, I see the books have an iCloud logo and are laggy. Clearly not in the device anymore. What??? I literally airdropped these files to this ipad. Ok no problem, I click the download button. Next day on the flight, PDF books are gone again. What was that “download” button even for? Horrible UX, no studying on the flight.

by FullFiguredMaple

Ever since I updated to iOS 15 AppleBooks has been really annoying to use. If I go a little while without using it, or open several other apps and come back to it, it loses my place. I read in continuous scroll mode and when this happens it goes all the way back to the start of the chapter I’m on, which is sometimes tens or even a hundred pages back. I think there is something wrong with the logic that should save your place when AppleBooks is removed from active memory. I’ve been working around this by bookmarking my page every time I stop reading so I can find my spot again so now I have dozens of bookmarks, which makes the bookmark feature near useless for saving actually important pages. Please fix it.

by Cubricon

Every fifth or sixth time that I open AppleBooks, it jumps from the page I was on, to a previous page. For example, say I was on page 42 last night, then I turn the phone off to go to sleep, then, in the morning, when I click the phone back on, the book jumps to page 30! At first I thought I was hallucinating. I even tried scrolling mode and Pages mode and it happens in both cases. But after about 20 times of this happening, and seeing it happen before my eyes this morning, I realized I wasn’t doing something wrong; AppleBooks is broken. This is happening on Books I PURCHASED from AppleBooks! This seems like such a basic piece of functionality and it’s super annoying, to the point that I am considering going back to the Kindle app.

by JGatsby

Every time I upgrade my iOS software on my iPad the best case scenario is there are no new features I care about. The worst case scenario (which is becoming more common) is that something that was working no longer does. First it was several games I liked. The most recent upgrade broke iBooks which is their own software! I used to use iBooks for all my PDFs. I have a ton of them due to my work and research. After the most recent upgrade to 15.4 when I open a pdf and scroll through a few pages, iBooks quits for no reason. I’ve tried reinstalling iBooks, hard restarts, etc. The only advice I get from Apple is to revert my iPad to its factory settings. I used to love Apple products but this is the norm now. After upgrading my Mac desktop a few years ago it was so slow as to be completely unusable.

by RKP81

I’ve been using iPad since the very first one came out and one of the apps I use most often is the Apple Books app. I have about 2000+ PDFs and a number of purchase books and ever since I updated iOS 15 on my iPad Pro I’ve had nothing but grief with his application.
I’ve done all the normal things; run diagnostics, restarted, rebooted, deleted AppleBooks , factory reset, and made sure I was up to the most current revision etc… and it’s still extremely unstable.
It randomly crashes, it randomly loses all the bookmarks, It randomly loses the most recent PDFs I’ve opened and that was made more difficult since the search program got hosed but seems to been recently fixed with the last update.
All my subdirectories get randomly cleared of all books and I’m told that I have no books orPDFs.

I contacted Apple for support and the support technician agreed that based on the symptoms that I described and the fact that I had gone through all the normal Debug procedures that it was most likely related to the latest update. They proceeded to connect me to the next level support and unfortunately they connected me to the wrong department. When I called back I had to rehash the whole explanation of my problem all over again and I still don’t have a satisfactory answer.

It’s nice to have new features in the new iOS but I wish they would test the iOS better before they release it.
Apple get your act together.

by NeedsUpdate

Would be nice to have all my graphic novels take full advantage of the bigger screen size of the new iPad mini. Why wasn’t iBooks updated to fit the new models before release? My mini is my reading device (as for many) for my ebook collection so i naturally expected iBooks to already have been optimized for all my media and fit the new screen size. Hint apple: why I chose to upgrade to the new model! It blows when you have the new iPad mini and All your media still has that old 7.9” ratio of the older models. (Not everything is about the storefront.) please update asap. I’ve also noticed some major slowdown when flipping pages. Just doesn’t feel natural on my new device compared to iBooks on the previous mini model.

by Aeslin7

After reading everyone else’s reviews I’m both glad and severely disappointed that I’m not the only person experiencing this glitch. EVERY time I leave AppleBooks , even when I bookmark my spot, when I return to AppleBooks and try to read where I left off AppleBooks suddenly jumps back an entire chapter and I have to manually scroll all the way back where I’d left off. It’s incredibly frustrating as this is the ONLY book app I actually prefer. I’ve tried reporting the error but I can’t get through to anyone. Those leaving 3 stars are too generous. I feel I’m being generous leaving 2 stars. This problem has persisted for the last 3 months, it’s high time it’s been fixed already

by Nana's Girl

Years ago, Apple used to be there best company for their apps, and for their reliable focus on maintaining their apps.. as the years went by, things rapidly took a downward shift. The company doesn’t take care of their apps like they should, they are no longer about the customer and helping them out, it’s all about what they can come up next and the great all American push for greed… power & take over.

iBooks had been having problems for months now, I have tried to tell there Apple community and every time I have my review some how get deleted, on forums & here. So gonna try it again!

iBooks is having severe issues, it glitches out, half the time I have to download things twice, and sometimes when I open it up, all I see is the books!!

All the library is somehow disappeared!!

What happened to reliability? Making sure there apps were in to working condition.

I really wish you would fix AppleBooks ??!

I rely on it quite a bit.(to save excerpts from books, or for books and for recipes! It is very frustrating to go to iBooks to get a pattern and they not be there, and no telling what time they will get back.

Please fix the program. I use it too much to lose it.

by User_12738

If you buy Steve Jobs by Isaac Walterson you’ll find that the majority of the audio is in a single 13 hour long chapter called “Closing Credits”. The actually book has 42 chapters yet the chapter sections are labeled 1-24 and not in that order. Each of these chapters range between 5 seconds and 1 hour long. There are 3 intermittent chapters labeled Part I. Folly, Part II. Madness, Part III. Ezra Blazers Desert Island Disks, and and Part Three: in the morning. These chapters headers are so random and don’t exist in the actual book WTAF. Even worse, these headers appear in another mess of an audiobook called Grit by Angela Duckworth.
What is this? The bad audiobook multiverse?
On my Mac the book is almost flawless. Some chapters start to late or early but otherwise zero issue. Most books are better on Mac which is weird. Apple please fix this on iPhone. I don’t like audible because its ugly.

by NewiPadUser2

What iBooks does well is that it allows you to start highlighting the moment your pencil touches the screen, unlike on Kindle, where you have to hold down the pencil for a full second before highlighting begins. This is a great feature!

A feature that I books needs, however, is the ability to adjust the margins. Sometimes they feel a little bit tight and Too close to the edges of the screen. It would be really nice to be able to adjust this in the settings. It also wouldn't hurt to be able to adjust the spacing between lines, which other competing apps allow.

by Barlosk1

If you were able to connect your audible library to your account and search the audiobooks you bought on their, without having to download them first, that would make AppleBooks 5 star and better then the audible app.

I have over 250 audiobooks on audible and would like a way to browse those books in AppleBooks but not have to download them to store them in iTunes. I would still like them in the cloud to download at any time.

by Hay Hay J

AppleBooks is perfect for me because it also has chapter books and I love chapter books and graphic novels and there’s no problem at AppleBooks which apps normally have problems so this is perfect I do not like apps I do not like apps with problems and this does not have any problems and plus I love books they are my favorite thing to do when I don’t have anything to do like drawer play my iPad like right now my time limit is up but I can go on App Store and send over his review like I am right now and I’m really happy to do this right now and this is just an amazing book I mean app the only problem is that you have to by by a book for so 💸 much money

by Rozeyyxo

AppleBooks is perfect, the only complaint I have is when I go in to highlight the entire page to be read out loud to me ..it works perfectly fine, but I am not able to smoothly transition to the next page without having to reload the entire app again. It is definitely a struggle but I read my books in the fastest speed spoken content has for.. college purposes. Time is everything and I really wish I could just smoothly transition to the next page without a glitch.

by Books App Lover

Are use the book app every single day. I read my books on my phone using the Books app. I love it because I always have my book with me wherever I go. This has been going on for over 20 years with me and the books app.

However, there is one part of reading a book that is very irritating. I only read books for pleasure I do not need the editing features. So I am constantly having to erase the highlights because my fingers touch the screen too long often or I press to hard to move the page. Is there anyway that Apple could add a feature that would allow a person to turn off the editing feature all together? It would make the Books app even more pleasurable to use.

I would also like to complement the filing feature within AppleBooks especially when I read books in a series. It keeps up with what I’ve already read and which book in the series comes next. That is a wonderful part of the Books app since I have almost 200 books out in my Books file.

So thank you for the Books app and please at sometime in the future that minor change would be very much appreciated.

by Cutie Unicat Blah Blah Noo

I hate AppleBooks it will not let me connect to AppleBooks Store!

by Brainwashed Catz

I use AppleBooks all the time for reason projects for school or just for fun. It's note taking, highlighting, and bookmarking features are fantastic but the books are quite pricey, as expected. Wonderful app in general.

by Linisac

This is a useful app. But it lacks the "Go Back" feature for PDF's hyperlinks. Every time I follow a link, I have to move back to the original page manually.

by App Reviewer C.C

I love AppleBooks! It's very nice to just use your phone,iPad, and iPod as a bookshelf! The only problem is the books are very expensive!!!! Otherwise AppleBooks is great and I love it!

by BenNormous

adds much needed features to iOS
Could have better integration support

by Peanuts#1REALFAN!!!

Very good but can you make samples bigger

by Kavir Behesht

سلام،دوستانى كه اهل كتاب هستند اين نرم افزار بسيار عالى وكارامد مى باشد،موفق باشيد

by Rocagambo

Rosario

by Thuyiphihi999

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