SimplyE App Reviews

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Bookmarks don’t seem to work properly. Just recently started using this app & 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 the app (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.

GOOD SELECTION; DISAPPOINTING OTHERWISE. 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 this app. 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 the app, 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.

Love it, but lotsa major glitches lately. I love the idea of this app, 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 this app… and nothing. I love this app so much and I love to read and listen to books, but lately the app is more of a joy kill than anything.

Jumpy. This app is a great way to get audio books but I find when I listen to audio books and lock my phone, the timer isn’t correct and when I hit pause it actually stops the book and restarts it from the beginning. When I hit play, the book continues from the beginning but then also continues from where I paused at the same time so two voices are speaking and I have to force quit the app in order to play it again. I love supporting the library and also having this to get books on the go but this isn’t great.

It’s great! Just a few recommendations -. First things first: I love this app. 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 SimplyE, 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!

Why don’t you understand book pages?. I have many issues with this app 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 SimplyE. 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.

iOS 15 crashes every time. This is such a bush league app So buggy. High school project?. I need and depend on this app. 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 the app is in the background, even if you’ve given the app background permission. 3. Your last listening point is not saved reliably unless you force quit the app. 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.

Love it except for one big problem. Like I said I love this app…when it works. I was so excited when I first got the app 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 the app. 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!

Not Terrible. The app allows me to read more...when it works. For starters, if you accidentally select the wrong library, it’s in your list for good as far as I can tell. The UI changes color based on the different library you use. Of course the one I needed was in black, so all the titles for each section were black text on a black background - invisible. The offerings for books seem to be larger than the books you can actually download, which may not be the apps fault, but be prepared. Lastly, have a strong cell service, it stops working the moment I get to 2 bars or lower, even on WiFi.

AMAZING App & Customer Service!!. I have downloaded SimplyE for quite some time now, and I want to reassure anyone reading this that I have encountered 0 issues so far. The UI of the app is very simple and easy to use. There are dozens of libraries accessible through this app, as well as a collection by SimplyE. 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, this app is just amazing!!

It almost never works twice. The first time I downloaded this app, it worked great. It also worked great the 2nd and 3rd and 4th and 5th times I downloaded it. Now I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve downloaded the app. What happens is I download an audio book. I listen to it. I switch it off when I have to take a break from listening. Then I come back and I can’t listen to the audiobook again. It won’t load. The only solution: delete the app. Download it again. Log in to the app again. Download the audiobook again. Repeat. Every week it seems the app has fixed more critical bugs. Sadly, it hasn’t fixed this one. I guess you get what you pay for.

Great App!. One comment would be to keep the last book you were reading open for when you open the app, 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!

Great but could be better. 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 the app 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 the app. 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!

Great app but I would change one little thing.... 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 this app, 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 the app in this tiniest way. I can’t be the only person with this little grievance!

Infuriatingly buggy app. When an ebook is actually available to be checked out immediately, the app is fine. But if you want to read a book that has a waitlist, meaning any popular and recent book at all, you might as well give up and look for it elsewhere. I’ve been waiting to check out a specific book for weeks and weeks with no end in sight because this nonfunctional app keeps randomly kicking me off the waitlist after several weeks of waiting, now causing me to have to go from #20 in line to #96 in line. This is what I get for trying to support the library and not just looking online for books. Good bye

App is broken in two crucial ways. This app has always had problems (I do not understand how it’s rated so highly). Some of them have been fixed. But a worse problem has arisen recently. First, BOOKMARKS ARE BROKEN. This has been true for a long time. About half the time, bookmarks do not save. So one is forced to flip through pages to find one’s place, often resulting it spoilers. SO FRUSTRATING Now, I CAN’T DOWNLOAD THE BOOK I RESERVED, which makes the book functionally useless. I reserved a book I had been looking forward to reading. It was finally made available to download after three or four weeks. I’ve tried to download the book six times over the last three days, on three different wifi networks, and it Fails every single time. SO I CAN’T READ THE BOOK I RESERVED. If brick and mortar libraries worked like this, they would not last. Not to mention the fact that the NYPL’s full catalog is not available on other apps, just this broken one. NYPL should be ashamed, and the developers should be replaced

I Love this App. I LOVE Simply E and recommend to friends and strangers alike. The only thing I would suggest to the developers is please please please add a wishlist or saved feature. I want to save many books for later that I don’t necessarily want to check out at the same time as I find them. I have come across so many interesting books I wish to check out it the future but can only request to “get” them or “reserve” them immediately. Many times I already have several books in my reserved list and I do not want to be overloaded with multiple books that I have to consume in a 3 week period. Please add this feature!

Great concept but needs improvements. No notifications unless you open the app 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.

'Look Up' dictionary feature stopped working. i have the latest version of both ios and the simplye app and for some reason the app no longer allows me to look up words in the iphone internal dictionary. it used to work but now it doesn't. very annoying and inconvenient. furthermore the app is very bad at keeping track of your page, sometimes even changing mid read. this usually happens when you have the menu buttons visible at the borders of the screen and then tap to remove them, the page layout resets. also very annoying and inconvenient.

Great app, but needs improvement. I am a NYPL member and have been borrowing books through this app during the pandemic. I can’t say how much I appreciate the chance to do this! The idea behind the app 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 the app 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 the app in the long run and keeping track of what we read and when is essential. Looking forward to giving a 5-star rating soon :)

Doing great, just needs a few more tweaks. I love this app and what it represents. I’m so grateful to be able to check out books this way. The reading interface has some good options, but there are a few problems I found that need to be addressed. Images aren’t always displayed properly. In a book I’m reading now, the images get stretched vertically over a few pages. Also whenever there is a linked footnote (with an underlined asterisk) clicking it brings me to a page with the footnote text in a minuscule font size that I can’t read. I’d love it to just pop up with a bubble there on the page when I tap it.

Some suggestions. I started using SimplyE 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 the app: 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 SimplyE app to another app & then back to your book while the app is still open (why put in that wall to go through again & again?). Looking forward to seeing more from this!

Good Start - But Needs Lots of Work. 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, the app 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. The app 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.

What my bones know.. This book was poignant and insightful. Although I did not have the same type of trauma as the author, I still 100% related with her story and journey. I totally appreciate the fact that she narrated it herself. I really think that that helped with the authenticity and understanding of her story. If I were a better writer and storyteller I feel like this book would have been something that could be written about me. That’s how relevant it was. Two thumbs up

Lacks Some Functionality. I would much prefer being able to read the content library in another reader application. It’s crazy no one has sold this kind of solution more readily to libraries. Or if they have, it’s crazy the NYPL seems to have their own. I’m highly suspicious that they should be in the business of creating their own ereader. Can’t they hire someone to do that with a more modern design? That being said, in a constructive idea, the UX needs help on the actual reading experience. I bet enough UX designers and software engineers living in NYC would care enough about this to improve it pro-bono… has that ever been tried?

Super convenient with a slight drawback. I absolutely love the convenience this app 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 this app now.

Good with room for improvement. Love this app because I can just download audiobooks and start listening to them right away. Can’t overstate how exciting that’s been for me. That said, the app is a little buggy sometimes, but my main gripe right now is that when listening to an audiobook while google maps navigation is running, the audio book pauses when Google maps navigation audio plays, but then does not resume, making the two nearly impossible, or at least unsafe, to use together.

Missing many basic features of an e-reader. 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.

A few tweaks & this app would be perfect!. 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 this app - 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 the app/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 the app 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.

Issues are getting worse 😤. I first downloaded the app in Sept 2022. At first everything was great. It was becoming one of my favorite apps. It would lose my place when I read or skip a few pages, but I overlooked that. I was still happy with having use of this app. However, it’s been a steady decline now. The bug fixes are not working. I have two books that are still showing available for download, but I’ve already read these books and returned them in December. Two current books are ready for download, but it keeps crashing and I get a message that it can’t download. So frustrating as these books I’ve been waiting weeks for and now I’m unable to read them. 😔 I’ve reported the issues but no feedback.

I want to love this app. I love that this app links with my NYPL account and lets me listen to audiobooks for free, but there are so many glitches. It often has issues downloading titles, which makes me need to put the book back on my waitlist and wait weeks for my turn to download it again. It also has no way to track the books you’ve read or downloaded in the past (which would be so helpful for tracking my reading goals) or to like or save books for a “to read” list. Since you can only have a few books on the reservations waitlist at a time, this feature would be so helpful. Between the glitches and lack of features, I can’t give this app more than 3 stars but it’s still a really nice option and helps me use my library card more.

Almost perfect!. Been using this app recently to read on my commute, and I love how seamless everything is! The experience is five stars, but I docked one for a couple features that would be nice: 1) a way to add books to a list/favorite books without checking them out. I thought this would be available via the “my books” tab but it’s not. Sometimes I see a couple of books I want to read, but I don’t want to reserve them both at the same time because I don’t want to hold them up while someone else might want them. Unfortunately there’s no way to keep a “to read” list in the app. Being able to create a list or backlog of items that I can refer to when it’s time to pick up a new book would be amazing. 2) echoing checkout history - it would be nice to be able to access a record of what I’ve already checked out, so at least if I did have to return something without reading it, I can come back to it later.

Many problems: pls fix. Honestly, I’ve got a couple problems with this app. First of all, when I’m reading a book, and go to a different tab, and then go back to simplyE, the app restarts and I have to wait for the book to load again. I am using this app 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, SimplyE is telling me that I can’t access Brooklyn Public Library cause I’m offline, but I can still access the simplyE books(??). I’ve tried restarting my phone, etc, nothing works. I would reinstall the app, 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. This app could be rly great

Duplicating Bookmarks and Search Please. 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!!

Basic functions are good but needs updates. I love using this to borrow books from the library but the basic experience is still rough, primarily bc every time I leave the app, 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 the app refreshed. Additional features that would be nice: (1) know how many pages into the book you are (my son uses the app 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.

Problems are fixed, thank you!. 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 the app. 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, this app becomes worse!

Audiobooks are buggy. I love the NYPL and the the ability to borrow free audiobooks is wonderful. However, I’ve never made it through an audiobook successfully on this app. If I pause a book and return to it later it’s usually (perhaps always) forgotten my spot and begins again. If I pause briefly and press play again it often starts the audiobook from the beginning at the same time as it plays from where I paused. When I press pause in this situation it will pause the track that started where I had previously paused, but the track that started from the beginning cannot be stopped unless I quit the app. When I reopen the app my place in the recording has been lost again. Please fix these bugs 🙏

Perfect when it works. I love that I can borrow ebooks from the comfort of my home on my phone. However, I’ve noticed that whenever a book’s loan period expires and I don’t physically click the “Return” button, the ebook remains in my “My Books” with only the “Download” button available for clicking. When I click on it, it gives me an error. It never used to be an issue until maybe a year ago? It’s bothersome because I can no longer re-borrow an ebook that may be available for borrowing. I kept hoping that it’ll get fixed eventually but I think I’ve waited long enough, and it might not get resolved any time soon, so I thought I should let others know. );

Very grateful to have a free app and support NYC libraries!. The app overall is great and when I’ve run into bugs (like being unable to return a book) the response time is very fast! There are a few outstanding bugs/features I’d like to see but I don’t think they impact the experience substantially. 1. Occasionally the app loses my place and kicks me back to the beginning of a chapter or another arbitrary place in the book. Not too disruptive because I can usually find my way back to where I ended. 2. Echoing other reviewers - I would love a likes or tbr feature. I try to request or borrow books as soon as a friend tells me about them so I don’t forget but when I have a long list of checked out and waitlist books, I either can’t borrow them or I take the opportunity away from someone who is available to read the book right now by borrowing it. 3. This is a very nice to have and I’d be willing to pay for a freemium version of the app, but enhanced reading tracking. I’d like to have a way to see my lifetime read or go back and browse through my previous reads.

Sometimes unusable but great selection because of NYPL. 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. The app has been deleted and redownloaded. When this glitch is happening, it makes the app 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.

Can’t figure out how determine how many pages left. I’ve tried a bunch of different things but I can’t figure out how to determine how many pages are left in the book. Mine is only displaying how many left in the chapter, but that’s kind of useless info unless you are reading a textbook and are assigned chapters to read by a certain time. I’m much more interested in knowing how many pages in a book and how far along I am. Is this book a 4-5 hour read? A 6-7 hour read? Will I finish it before it needs to be returned? Of course I’d rather be reading, but I have to work too! Can someone point me to where I change the setting to show pages in the book not just pages in the chapter?

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

Great app. Amazing selections. Few suggestions.. I love the app. 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.

Nice, but ...... Nice simply app, but when I exit the app OR take a break from reading and come back to the iPad I have to reopen the book. Why not just stay on the page that I left? It would also be much better if I can see where I am in the book. Seeing just the chapter is not good enough. I need to see what % I am done in the book. I might see Chapter 12, and not know if I have 30 more chapters left to read or 3 more Chapters remaining. It would be great to see something like 20% done or 30% done or 40% done – you get the idea. Also a history of books that I have read would be very useful. Thank you and I hope to See the app Improve.

Confusion with bookmarks & audio. At first, this app seemed perfect for my needs. I mainly use it to listen to audiobooks while riding the subway. My other library app, Libby, is problematic on the subway because every 10-30 seconds there’s a break in audio transmission, resulting in the loss of several words. When it happens every ten seconds it really impacts the listening experience. But it turns out SimplyE is even worse, because this app loses bookmarks with e-books, and if I pause an audio book, when I resume it plays the book both from where I left off and from the beginning! At the same time! Why they scrapped Overdrive I don’t know. That app was perfect in almost every way. The only thing I couldn’t do with it was to have the same audiobook on my phone and my tablet...

Great when working- many many glitches. When the app 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 the app 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 the app 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. The app has the report an issue section but there’s never any follow up- feels like asking for help into a void.

Returned books cannot be removed. To the developers: In the past I have rated SimplyE five stars. But a major glitch that occurred with the most recent update is why I have changed my rating to one star. I’m using the most updated operating systems on all my devices. The 9 most recently returned books, which previously would have been automatically or manually deleted, on my loans list are staying on the list. That means I cannot borrow any items using SimplyE. I have synced, rebooted, deleted and reinstalled the app several times, none of which solved the glitch. Hope you solve this in next update. I look forward to changing my rating back to the best. Thanks

A Great App. Sure it could use some tweaking as others have suggested but this app definitely gets the job done. I like the fact that the system clock is accessible by just touching the middle of the screen on my iPhone 7. However, when the iPhone is in the new Dark mode, the time and all other system information fails to appear. I’m guessing that in Dark mode those characters turn white making it difficult to see against a white backdround. One small item for the developer’s todo list.

Good selection of books with a functional app for free. The fact that this many books are available all for free on a functional app is amazing. Thanks to SimplyE for making this happen. I don’t have enough money to support my books addiction but SimplyE makes it possible. However, there are a few annoying bugs that I would love if you guys could fix. Sometimes when I skip a bunch it loses my place. Also, some audiobook titles don’t have chapter names. Otherwise, thanks for the amazing app!

Why make a semi-ok app worse with updates?. For some reason each time stability updates are applied to this app... 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 the app 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!

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Amazing. Thanks for fixing the downloading issue right away, now all my books are downloading again. Btw I really love this app. I’ve tried many different apps for ebooks and this one is the best so thank you so much!!😊

Pharaoh - Wilbur Smith. Only way I can re-dowload a book that I haven't had the chance to finish is to uninstall and reinstall the app. Every. Single. Time.

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great, but.... i feel silly complaining for such an amazing, free app that allows me to borrow incredible books from the library. it’s a dream come true, so i thank you. sincerely. but. i can’t see the books i was reading! no history searches! so if i go into the app and i’ve missed the return date by a day & the book is gone but i don’t recall the name or author? poof! gone. it’s now happened twice. it’s heartbreaking! i usually take photos - a screenshot - of the book or whatever in case it happens - but i can’t always find the dang photo. i’m just kicking myself right now cuz the book i was reading was GREAT and i really miss it :( oh well. perhaps we’ll meet again... regardless, thank you, again - it’s a great app if you’re not a nobhead like myself. :P xo

Great audiobook selection, some glitches. Perhaps because of connection issues, the audiobook app sometimes jumps back a lot and you end up realizing you are listening to the same chapter over again. This could be easily solved by a function that lets you manually mark where you left off — a bookmark function for audio, basically — then you’d know straight away if the app has jumped back from where you were

The last two updates messed it up. There are a few flaws on this app: 1. When reading and not touching the screen, it will go off, it's not like a news app that it will remain on for a while. 2. After turning on again or switching back from a different app, the book doesn't stay in the open page, but it goes back to either the titles of other books one has downloaded, or to the head title of the book one is reading, where it prompts "this book is ready to read" This is annoying, it's as if I'm reading an email, take a phone call and when I go back to the app is on the main page and I have to scroll down to find the email I'm reading. 3. Search engine can be improved to display titles when searching the name of an author and not only search book titles and offer exclusively such results Hopefully it will get better Thank you!

Loved listening but... There was an issue with the app not keeping tab of where I stopped listening. Many times I would have to search because it would default to 5-10 minutes earlier. I waisted lots of time skipping forward to find where I was last. Ended up taking screen shots at the end of my listening time so I can find where I was last faster.

Could be better. This app, as well as the NYPL main app, are very clean and easy to use. However, the NYPL app sends you to the ebook app, which will only open ebooks in their app. In order to get a book sent to my Kindle I have to access the NYPL site to search, which is not made for access by a cell phone and comes up all choppy. Having the option to d/l in other formats would be great.

Great app. I love this app since you have access to thousands of books at a moments notice. Only problem i have is when books expire I immediately lose it and it’s taken from my checkout section. And I wish there was a feature to save a book that you want to look at later but can’t currently access due to maximum checkout limitations.

Unusable - Constantly goes back to chapter 1. I’ve tried with 2 different audiobooks and after listening for hours and hours if I re open the app the next day it will loose my place and go back to chapter 1, trying to re-download the chapters I already downloaded. This happened once on a long plane ride where downloading wasn’t possible and another time just at home with no loss of internet connection. So frustrating, I can’t use this until the issue is fixed.

Does not remember progress in audiobook. Update: I have an audiobook, no matter what I do I cannot download it. This is just terrible for a library app honestly. This is SO FRUSTRATING!!! Every time I start again (one day after previous time) the progress is just gone. Not a minute or two, HOURS before I ended up the night before. This is the ONE feature that you think this app would try to do right; I don’t care about the appearance or ease of use. Just don’t ruin my progress. Honestly this is nothing compared to Libby…

Any book I want! Love this app!. I’ve been using SimplyE with my NYPL library card and I’m amazed at the breadth and quality of the ebooks available. I use this app every day and discover so many new authors and books that don’t seem to pop up in my other ebook apps. I was very excited to see audiobooks appear in the app today! Even more great content to explore—thank you SimplyE!

Only ok. Given that this is mostly an app for reading, I would expect to be better for reading. Losing your place when you close the app, slow switching between chapters, only small, too large and way too large font size choices, jumping around to different page when you try to add a bookmark. It’s all a bit irritating and below expected standards.

Glitchy. There are a lot of glitches. Frequently loses place in book and has to start all over again. Will play from both the beginning of the book on your device and where you actually are simultaneously when on bluetooth. Does not hold your place in the book when you need to borrow again. Overall poor app. I wish my library supported a different one.

Books missing pages. This app is terrible. I downloaded it in order to read eBooks and unfortunately I can’t read a single downloaded book. When I turn the page it skips ahead anywhere from 1 to 4 pages. I thought it was just an error in one book I had downloaded but I’ve tried several and it’s the same issue with every single book. If you enjoy reading the first page of the first chapter and nothing else then by all means use this app.

Font sizer stopped working. TOO small text. I loved this app (5 stars) for years. But on both my iOS devices the text is teeny tiny and the font -increase size won’t work anymore. It happened on two Jack Reacher novels I just downloaded and halfway thru another before that after a crash. So I deleted the app, reinstalled, added the Los Angeles library and its still acting like this. I just can’t read it his way

New Kid (required reading). I wasn’t expecting the ton of emotions this book made me feel. And I certainly wasn’t expecting any tears. I’m in my mid-40’s so maybe it’s my hormones but, that aside, I feel this is REQUIRED READING for ALL AGES, right up there with #howtobeanantiracist but for kids or anyone no ready to read the latter. Great Book. Happy I decided to read it.

It’s a good story on living through grief. Edward, a 12 year old boy, surviving a plane crash, muddles through life in a daze until he finds a constructive way to deal with his grief. This book is well written and has a realistic feel of what it’s like to grieve ( having lost many family members, in a short period of time, myself). The psychology behind a grieving child, is not directly stated, but does touch on the emotions on each stage of a child, tween, teen, young adult; grieving again, yet differently at each stage.

Brutal for audiobooks. I listen to audiobooks on my commute and want to make use of NYCs awesome library. Unfortunately eSimply doesn’t seem to save your spot in the book, making you have to write down where you are every time you stop listening. Also if the app closes then it undownloads the book and makes you redownload before continuing, which works maybe 3/4 of the time. Overall really frustrating and I hope this gets fixed cause it could be really great.

Glitchy and unuseable. This app used to be great; my books downloaded quickly and it was simple to listen to them. However in the past few months every time I open the app it tells me my books are no longer downloaded and I need to wait for them to download to listen. OK fine. But the book never prompts to download again! I have to delete the app and reinstall completely for the book to prompt to download. It’s insanely annoying and makes it difficult to use the app if I have to redownload every time I want to listen.

Glitchy and limited functionality. This app doesn’t allow you to search text within books or highlight text. You also can’t scrub across the book pages - all the app has is a table of contents to switch chapters. It also glitches sometimes if you change pages more than once, skipping ahead to the next chapter or beginning of the current chapter.

Digital borrowing is great, app has issues. First off, I’m a fan of what this app is trying to do and I understand it probably operates under some difficult constraints. Some issues I’ve run into: * routinely forgets what page you’re on. Every time I open the app I have to skip through a chapter or so to get to where I left off. * sometimes turning pages will skip a whole chapter. This seems like a bug when content is loading. The app shouldn’t allow page turns in this state if it can’t manage it. * no offline caching at all. If you open the app in the subway or on a plane or somewhere without internet it won’t allow you to read your checked out books. I would think the app could know how long you have a book checked out and cache at least part of the book around the saved/last read page for offline reading.

Bugs lost my holds, cant get them back. I really want to love this app! I do! But the bugs make it so difficult. I had two books I had on reserve become available yesterday so I checked them out and downloaded them. I had another book still on reserve, been in line for awhile. Today, on an app refresh I lost all three books from my account, and if I try to get back on the reserve list (after waiting my turn in the first place...) the app gets lost in a sign in loop with no place to contact support. Beyond frustrated because I was so excited to read the books I had waited for

Great app I recommend + feature request. I love this app. Easy to use and fairly intuitive. I’ve been able to read lots of books from the NYPL and recommend it highly. I only wish there were a way for it to log the books I’ve checked out so I have a record of them and can check them out again if I hadn’t finished it. Currently a book simply disappears which I find perplexing. Please add this functionality. Thank you.

The right book this point in time. In a world where opinions and beliefs are created based on bite size information, this is the right book to help us develop new ways of thinking. I really appreciate all the examples shared in this book to illustrate the lessons, as well as the practical steps shared towards unlearning and rethinking.

Needs to get fixed.. I’ve been using this app for over a year now but it started acting out about a week or two ago. I am reading a book and when I try to turn a page it might do so or turn 10/20 pages at a time moving me to the next chapter or a blank page. I don’t know if the app was updated or what but it has happened with several books, not just one. And it makes the whole process of book reading really annoying and the chances of the app spoiling the book for you really high.

All Good BUT. I am used to using ereader apps for library books that spell out the initial borrowing time, list how many people are waiting, and provide a renewal window within a few days of expiration. Not having these features is hard when the book is great and you are near the end, and life is short.

Different generas. I love this app! I can listen and do other things, walk, crossword puzzles and etc. It’s great that I don’t need to drive to the library and can listen to a book and immediately return it it I don’t like the language or it’s too tacky for my taste. It’s the best thing since sliced bread. 😂

Big fan, but…. I’m a huge fan of the audiobook functionality of this app, and recommend it constantly, but one feature has annoyed me immensely: with random titles that I have reserved, the app gives a notification that “the chapter has not finished downloading,” and I can’t listen to the book. I haven’t found a solution for this issue, and it’s especially annoying with titles that might have a one month lead time on reservations.

Easy to use and lots of books to enjoy. I love this app! I’m able to access thousands of different books. They download easily and I can enjoy most of them right away. The audiobook selection is also wonderful. I have been recommending this app to all my family and friends. You will not be disappointed.

Terrible App. Poor connection all the time, always has one problem after another. Http status 502 is the problem of the day. I have many library apps, no problem with connecting or getting books with any of the others. One star is one to many!

Really frustrating to use. I appreciate the service and selection, but...If you close the app, switch to another app, or the phone locks, it takes you back to to the first page of the current chapter. You have to flip through to find where you left off. That task alone is difficult because the pages are hard turn. Can only flip pages at at a slow pace I spend half my subway ride just trying to get back to my spot in the book

What happened?. I enjoying having SimplyE, and use it on two devices. I used to be able to link there two, and therefore would be at the same place in the book I was reading (on either device). Since the past two updates, I am no longer able to do this. Did you change something? It is quite frustrating to have to scroll through pages and pages in my phone and/or tablet to try to find where I left off...

Thanks. Really enjoying the app - have been using it a lot. One suggestion, would love if there was some kind of “save” or “wish list” function where one could add books for later reading. Right now we have to reserve a book even if we’re not quite ready to read it.

So helpful during these times. The app is incredibly helpful to keep reading during these times! It is fairly easy to navigate. However, I’ve been trying to read a very long book for the past three weeks, and for some reason, every time I want to read it, I have to check it out again. It doesn’t stay in My Books for more than a day (often only an hour or so) if I exit the app for any reason.

Great… but a few glitches. I recently started using this app it is great. I even found books that were already checked out on other apps. However.. this app is glitchy and you will experience problems. When reading it will sometimes go to random pages and when you exit out the app and come back to it, it takes a while to load the book. :(

Love love love. There are some usability problems (sometimes the app reloads and it loses your place—the bookmark works but I’d rather the app remember) but I LOVE this app. I can’t even tell you how much it’s saved me in terms of cost/time. I love being able to switch between borrowed books on my phone—I’ve been able to read so many more books because of this app and it helps me test/preview books before I decide to borrow or buy them in real. So thank you to the developers & the NYPL team!

Font size problems. I just upgraded my app and discovered my page is nearly unreadable. The font is tiny. Hit + or - and it remains tiny. I read on my iPhone and it was great before the change. Any ideas out there? I think it was a 5 Star app and I would hate to give it less but . . . . . I’ll leave it at 5 for now.

Great app but not perfect. I love all the great books and audiobooks I can find on this app through my library! I really wish they had a ‘favorites’ function or a way to make a list of books that interest you without checking them out at that moment, and some increased filtering and searching options would be nice, but still it’s an app I use a lot.

Worst reading app. It does not save your place in the book or even what book you were listening to. Every single time I open the app, I have to find the book in my library, sometimes it is there, sometimes it’s not, so I have to close and reopen the app to get the book to reappear. It’s like a surprise each time. Then it puts you on some random chapter you were on 3 days ago and get to test your memory about what chapter you were on when you last listened. It doesn’t save the speed you were listening on so that has to be readjusted. Do yourself a favor and don’t listen through here.

Good choices but problem with headphones. I really like all the choices of audiobooks that are available. However when I am listening with headphones I cannot stop and start the playback by touching the headphones as I can with other audiobook and podcast services. I can only pause and restart via the app.

Great when it works. Most of the time it takes a couple days for the books to download. I keep having to go back and try to download again and again. Sometimes even after I’ve downloaded a book snd have already started on it, it needs to be downloaded again. A few times I e had books returned because they would never download in the whole 14 day checkout period.

Love it but.... Two things: 1. If I get interrupted while reading (have to lock my phone or go to a different app) I lose my place and get sent back to the “my books” list instead of the page I was reading when I left off. When I reopen the book I was reading it sometimes takes me one page back and it takes time to find my place again. 2. I would like a list of the books I have previously had so if I wasn’t finished or if I need them again I can find them easily.

Wish i could do two things at once. I wish we had the option to leave the audio book while it’s still playing on the app to continue browsing on the app or let us follow along with the actual book while listening if you have both the audio and book downloaded. Other than that i adore this app truly!!

Login doesn’t work. In normal circumstances I would give this app 5 stars. But it has decided on its own to not allow me any reservations of books and throws me back on the login page. I try to login again with same credentials as usually used for the past year and continues to throw me back to the login page. Very frustrating,.. the books I was reading have been deleted from my books section. I restarted my phone, I deleted the app and reinstall, nothing works. Disappointed and frustrated that the developers are not fixing this bug, and may not even be aware of it.

Good but not great iPad reading experience. Reading on an iPad, each line of text seems way too long. Some increased margins would be very helpful (check out readableContentGuide in the iOS layout system). Also, I find the font sizes are either a little too small or a little too large and the text is always full justified. More control in those areas would make reading in the app better.

Audio books sometimes won’t download. I love this app for listening to audio books but sometimes the titles I’ve reserved won’t download once I check them out. This is super frustrating because sometimes I’ll wait months to check out a book only for it to not download. If this issue could be solved, the app would be perfect.

Frustrating.. So difficult to read a book in this app! It won’t save my place in the book, seems to always start at the beginning of the current chapter I’m on. It’s difficult to open a book if the phone isn’t connected to the internet, so it’s rough trying to open a book on the subway. Just download the book to my phone please. Also, impossible to read the time when in dark mode. Black font on a black background doesn’t work. I wish you could just download the books to kindle like Libby lets you do.

Great app, just needs a few tweaks of audio options. I love SimplyE and only wish for smaller gradations in the playback speed options for audiobook settings. 10% gradations would be ideal. The drop from 1.0 to .75 is way too too steep when one wants just a slight adjustment of a rushed narration. I often find the .90 rate offered by other reading apps just about right.

Moving/syncing pages doesn’t work anymore. Generally a nice app, but lately the page syncing (“move to last read page”) option when returning to the same book is gone. That means you have to either remember the page number or write it down when you haven’t finished a book and are checking it out again. Not a huge problem, ‘twas a useful feature though. :)

Like the App BUT.... Very annoying to wait weeks/months for a book only to realize I didn’t get a notification that my book was ready for a checkout and miss my opportunity to read the book then have to wait all over again. Also, I would like to know my history of books checked out so I can summarize the years worth of books read. Please and thank you!! Fix these things and I’d give the app five stars!!

Good but needs a “next to read” tag. I’ve been using it for a few weeks. It works great for checking out books and adding yourself for a que to rent. But I think it would greatly be improved if I can set add ebooks to a list of next to read. Right now, you can either “rent now” or “reserve” but if I’m reading book A and I’m interested in book B, I should be able to add book B to a “next to read” list. That way, I’m not forced to checkout Book B if it’s currently available. Thanks

New update. I love this app. But since this most recent update, I have to download the same books over and over, because they disappear. And today, the app will open and then immediately close. What?! I want to read my books! Love the app. Hate the update. In response to the developer, there isn’t any specific point in the book where it would disappear, it was random. And I would close the app by pressing my home button. One book was still in the booklist and I had to download it, but, there were others that weren’t. At times I would find the book again to download but, it would be on reserve again.