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Why the publishers of Glose-readable books do not simply make them readable in Apple Books or some other standard, I can’t understand. Yes, I can. They are trying to stop folks from sharing the books. They can exercise more control over the use of their content if all someone’s books are linked to the account through which the books were purchased. The only reason I downloaded the app was because it was the only way I could read the book that I wanted. As soon as I am through with the book, I will delete the app. These folks have clearly not “walked through their own front door”. They have no idea the hoops that they make new users jump through if they buy a book—and then attempt to set up the app. It took me several hours, creating an account through the app, deleting that account, and creating a new account before I could read the book that I had already purchased. When I sent an email to the company for help, they sent a canned response, clearly never having read my email. Like I said, after I finish my book, I will have nothing further to do with Glose. I will simply avoid any future book that is only available through Glose. My new rule of thumb: If an e-book is not available through Apple Books, where 99% of the rest of my e-Library lives, I won’t buy it. Lesson learned.

This is the app used by the Wall Street Journal for their complimentary books provided to subscribers. I have a stack of audiobooks saved to this app that I have never listened to, because it is essentially impossible to listen offline. Unlike other apps, this one gives you no controls on downloading a book. You just open it and downloading supposedly happens in the background. But if you disconnect from the internet and then try to open one of your downloaded audiobooks, an error pops up saying some features are not available, please try again later. This is completely unacceptable and the app is essentially useless to me if I can’t listen to audiobooks offline, like when I am running or in my car. The free app from my public library is better than this. I am glad I am not paying for this content, but the Wall Street Journal should find a better provider for its member benefits.

It's way too easy to highlight quotes or define words--but only when you don't want to. I just spent a whole minute trying to define a word and couldn't manage it. But other times, my thumb rests on the screen, I guess, and I touch a word and the "define word" window pops up and literally takes up the whole screen. It also happens when I swipe to go back a page, for some reason. I read ebooks all the time in other apps and have never had an issue with it, but with Glose you can't avoid it. Because it's so easy to highlight quotes, it's also an effort to bring up the menu. You have to touch the edge of the screen, where in other apps it would turn the page. You can only slide the pages left, or chose the scroll continuously option. As for the definitions themselves, the app can't define a word if there's punctuation after it, such as a possessive word or a word with a comma or period at the end. I have had to tell the app multiple times that I don't want to see random people's highlights, because apparently it can't remember that. The normal font size is either too big or too small. I've taken to reading in the dyslexia font because it's a better size. There are no settings outside of the page's appearance. And turning off public quotes, of course, when it decides to remember.