SimplyE
Reviews and Complaints

This app works better now. It still crashes and needs a restart every few chapters, and it would be great if it had a dictionary built in or directly linked. This is, after all, a library-centric app, and it features a lot of young adult books. I haven't been young in decades, but she still like to look ok up words I don't know. It shoul also offer bookmarks, and the ability to sync them and to go to the last page read between two devices.

The best part of this s app is the fact that it interfaces with the NYPL's e-book
collection, making it the equivalent of a free library in your pocket.

Please keep improving this app! It's good, but there a models out there (Kindle app) that are more stable and have dictionaries. NYPL once offered its books on Kindle. Since it now uses its own proprietary app, it would be not Che if it offered all of the features and stability of Kindle.

This app is so much better than the 3m cloud library. It's nice to be able to browse covers, and instantly read books right from the app. But, there are two problems. When I stop reading without quitting the app, it defaults back to the homepage when I open it again, creating a lot of unnecessary clicks to go to my books, select the book and click read. It should default to the page I was reading when I open it, like the Kindle app, unless I have quit the app. Also, even though the app claims to "download" the book, when I read in a poor or no service area -like the subway- I often get blank pages if I haven't opened the books above ground first. Or, when I am on a longer trip, if I read more than 10-15 pages, the book goes blank again, which makes it seem you need Internet connection to read. It baffles me that a NYC-based library would make an app the doesn't work in the subway where so many people read.

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

The app was an amazing gateway for me into the extraordinary ebook library that the NYPL has, and the ease of browsing books and checking them out is really nice. But the e-reader itself leaves a lot to be desired. As others have noted, the lack of a bookmark, notes, or search function is very limiting. And the flaw that finally drove me to write this review is the reader's inexplicable inconsistency when it comes to font size. I'm reading a book now where each chapter seems to have a completely different font size option--sometimes only allowing me to have an absurdly small font (while the font adjustment button resizes the chapter title only) and others having a minimum font size that is way larger than I would prefer. It's a weird bug and one that really gets in the way of enjoying the book. This has happened in a couple of instances, so by now I've learned that I'm better off going through OverDrive and sending the book to my Kindle app.

While looking through your app, I noticed it could have been better organized by getting more specific in the books you're looking for. Such as adding a graphic novel section in the catalog for comics and anime fans, or making it easier to look for a specific book. I was also slightly disappointed because I expected the app to be able to tell the person upcoming late books that could be fined if not return on time. I even expected the app to have the books that are currently checked out along with their due dates for said person. Overall as the first version of this app: It's okay. It's not good nor bad, but has potential to be popular among people who regularly go to the library. My advice as a simple librarian page will be to make constant improvements to this app because we are in a more digital world where smartphones are common in many places, this could be really useful and can save time plus effort for the people getting books and the people working in libraries.

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

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!

For searching the NYPL catalog, checking out books, and placing holds, this is a seamless and terrific app. Unfortunately, as a eReader, it's pretty terrible.
-The biggest issue is that it doesn't download the entire book, so if you lose your connection, you have to stop reading at the end of the chapter. Even in places with wifi, I sometimes have to exit the book and go back in to get it to fetch the next chapter.
-Since it loads chapter by chapter, the back/forward scroll at the bottom only goes through the chapter you're in, not the whole book. If you want to go back to something earlier, you have to go to the menu and select that chapter -- assuming you remember which one it was. It also only shoes you how many pages are left in the chapter, not the whole book.
-The 3d, 5w, 4m abbreviations make it hard to tell at a glance how much time you have left on a book. These are short words and there's room for them! It would also be helpful to be able to sort your bookshelf by newest/oldest or time left.
I really want to love this app, but for now I'll be using it solely to browse and place holds, then reading via Overdrive, Kindle, or 3M.

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.

On the plus side, thiis app does allow you to read content instantly from the New York Public Library. That's a good thing, but it may be the only good thing. As an e-reader, it is extremely primitive and, but for the content it offers, probably deserves zero stars.

1. No bookmarking. (This is a pretty serious oversight.)
2. No highlighting or annotating.
3. No searching the text.
4. No ability to see progress through a book as a whole whether by page or percentage. I can only see how far I am in a given chapter.
5. No ability to see definitions, Wikipedia entries, or Google search results for a word or phrase simply by pressing one's finger on the text.
6. No memory of my progress when I resume reading on a different device.
7. Limited formatting control. Margins are non-existent on my iPad, words are much too close the edge of the screen.
8. Page flipping works slowly. Sometimes you get several blank pages in a row while waiting for the app to catch up.
9. None of the more advanced features available on Kindle, e.g. "Page Flip."

I have used Kindle, iBooks, 3M Cloud library, and others, and this is the most limited of all. If none of those apps had ever existed, I might be impressed, but even the earliest versions of some of those were more powerful.

Should be great. After all it's a reader app. However..
1. When you sync the books you have on hold the App tells you that there is been an error. Every time you do it for the first time. If you say OK and then sync again things displayed correctly.
2. If you were in the app and have to go to another app for a moment and then come back when you hit the end of a chapter that display will go to just white. No more text. He must quit the app altogether and relaunch it in order to continue reading.
3. Accessing the option controls is ridiculously difficult. Swiping down, tapping in the center of the page...I tried all of these things but nothing consistently works. And once you do have the option bar down it is difficult to get rid of it.
4. Speaking of controls, reducing the brightness within the app actually reduces the brightness for your entire device.
5. There is no way to tell where you are in your book. There is a supposed progress line on the bottom of the screen when the options are open but no indication as to where you are in the book.
6. If you begin reading a book on your iPad and then want to pick it up on your iPhone you must remember exactly where you are your self. There is no sync of your progress. What makes this most difficult is the above-mentioned lack of knowing where you are in your book.

In conclusion, this app fails and too many ways to call it a useful app. It should never have been released in its current state and needs and almost total rework.

I love the fact that I was able to join and borrow NYPL books during the coronavirus pandemic without having a library card.

The problem I have is that this app has very barebones features, which makes it difficult to truly take advantage. I am not sure whether this is a private developer or government funded since it’s possible to access multiple libraries in other states. Readers deserve more features. Please study the features offered by Amazon Reader, iBooks, and other similar apps. Think of features people want from the experience of checking our books at physical libraries and create digital features based on that. For instance, there is no way to create a list of books I’d like to read and checkout (which should be able to to let me prioritize the order in which I’d like to read said books). There is no clear way to keep track of anything I’ve read either. There is no way to request that certain books get added to the catalog. The reader itself is clunky — highlighting doesn’t work well, I can’t zoom in/out, the font sizes only have two options, there is no way to take notes (whether typed/written), etc. It would be nice to be able to rate books and post comments for other readers to see on each page to create discussions. Where are magazines, newspapers, videos, periodicals, and other types of content? How come I can’t write/dictate (audio) notes? This app needs more accessibility features, Goodreads, Siri, and IFTTT integration, social sharing (I’d love to tell others what I’m reading!), etc. Get the picture?

The fact that I can sign up to check our books and access them during a pandemic when the NYPL can’t process new library cards on their own website is huge. I want to use this app daily, but it’s very rare that I open it because of these types of missing features, which make the reading experience difficult and often unenjoyable. This app desperately needs major updating. I hope you’ll take this feedback seriously. If you need an experienced voluntary beta tester with 22.5 years of experience, send a DM on Twitter @MashaT22. I would love to help test new features as you give the app a huge new facelift.

Thanks! :-)

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!

Tony (head of the NYPL), please get this most promising app fixed:
1) It resets to the beginning of the book/chapter when it is minimized or is turned off. So much time and frustration are expended getting back to one's place in the book.
2) It is an enormous data hog. I had to increase my family plan to 16mg just to use the app. It would have been cheaper to have bought the books. Better would be if users could download the books for a limited period, which is how the Kindle downloads work.
3) The app is just too bright, with no ability to adjust brightness.
If the goal is to encourage reading in all communities, especially the inner city, this app at present won't do it. I give you two stars for trying and for the enormous range of selection.
Thank you in advance for the next version which should be so much improved.

Very slow. Nothing loads. Nothing available.

Every book I borrow is gone after I close the app and reopen it. Deleting app.

This app is nice but I have a lot of issues synching my library. Please make an update

Recent updates have it repeatedly crashing on my iPhone, using OS 11...Please fix ASAP!

Saw this online and it said that I could download the mueller report. But could not find it.

all of a sudden this app stopped working on my iphone 5s. and there’s nothing in the frequently asked questions section that addresses this. what a waste.

I’d love to be able to use this app, but every time I try to connect and authenticate to my library, it errors out a couple times saying no internet connection, then crashes completely.

When I click “more” all I get is a message telling me to please wait. Nothing loads. Then I get a message telling me to check my connection and allowing me to try again. Fix the app. It’s awful.

Solid selection of books, so good content BUT the app is awful. Whenever you exit, it takes you back to the beginning of whatever chapter you’re in. Means you have to page through to get back to where you left off. This shouldn’t be a problem in the 21st Century.

99% of the time I open the app all of my borrowed books have disappeared. When I try to download them again they are often no longer available. Basically have to read the entire book in one sitting or you're doomed to reading the first few chapters and then lose all access to the book.

Was in the middle of reading a book on my iPad. When I went to read it today, it had disappeared and there is no way to get it back. I tried reserving it again and it tells me I have already checked it out. Restarted iPad-nothing. Oddly, the book is still on my phone but i don’t like reading on that. Very frustrating and disappointing.

After downloading the latest version of this app, all the books in my reservation section were moved to the My Books section and are supposedly ready to download...however when I download them, it says the books are corrupted and are blank. If I return them and redownload, same thing. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app, same thing. So I have lost all my reservations.

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

I was really excited to use this app and access books I wouldn’t normally buy on my commute, but I literally have to download the SAME book every time I want to read it. It disappears after each read making this app useless and inefficient. This happens with every single book- download, read a few pages, close app, it disappears. What is the point of a my book section if nothing actually stays. Frustrating!

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.