Needs serious help!!!! 1/5
By Supremema83
Like the app but needs some serious help when purchasing ebooks and audiobooks due that I have iPhone and when I want to purchase any it makes it difficult 😞 to do so with Apple Pay/ wallet (???) better off clearing out for into on this app before erasing it.
No purchase option 1/5
By claidheamdanns
Can’t purchase books in the app.
Pathetic 1/5
By Kampli
Can’t even edit name in my own library. Can edit my pdf .. this app is getting more worse than better. Need to move away from this app.
Updated review 4/5
By Note-maker
My previous review was very negative. I thought that if you tapped on a note too close to an edge or top or bottom of a page, it would turn the page, (or insert a bookmark) and while that’s true, I just learned that you can type in the middle of a sentence to see the note.
My second book app I needed (UPDATE) 5/5
By Review guy 467
I use this & Apple Books. I also tested kindle I could mention the problems with it. But I most likely will be repeating what most have said before. What I will say google books is easy to navigate so far I find the same books here as on Apple Books. Kindle is missing some books. Google books has a far better feature for comics then Amazon’s comixology. Which I’ll warn at this point that app as gone done hill. Google as audio books it’s not like audible. It’s good has simple features that are useful. So if you need a second book app I say give this a try. Cause is just one app you need vs having total of 4 kindle, comixology, audible, & goodreads (👈which this app does reviews & recommendations, overall this app covers books in kindle more. Not very useful.) Last when you add your books the recommendations it’s make is good. UPDATE: I just noticed something the average difference between (some of the books) the number Book pages between Apple Books and Google Books is about 60 pages. While the average difference between the number of book pages between Apple Books and Kindle is about 40-46 pages. If I had to say, which one of the three does the best job on book recommendations I say Google play books, Kindle, & Apple Books.
(Forgot to add this:Google play books has a thing to where you go on the website and you can bundle package some books or all the books in a series in one purchase.If it’s a continuing series you can purchase a so call subscription to where you can get a new book each time a new one comes out. Kindle/Amazon has a bundle feature, but it’s only for three books.Apple Books doesn’t have any of those things the other two have.)
Poor customer service/returns policy 1/5
By One_Angry_Bird
I was looking for a new digital comic reader now that Amazon has gutted ComiXology, but am really disappointed with Google Play’s cookie cutter refunds process and policy. With my very first purchase, I accidentally bought the wrong volume and immediately reported it to request a refund, but my request was denied. Not a great first impression. Amazon may be messed up, but at least their ebook return policy for accidental purchases actually works.
Always goes to page 1 after switching back from another app 1/5
By Hanzhaq
Always goes to page 1 after switching back from another app. Then I need to manually go to the page I was reading
Bad for wifi-only devices 2/5
By Atem925
Downloads invariably fail the first time and usually fail on the second attempt too. Good for reading when it does download the books but bad for devices that can’t always be connected to the internet.
Feature Request 4/5
By Endrinar
I absolutely love this app. I read all my books on here.
**Request**: please make it possible to right margin notes on here with the Apple Pencil (or any other stylus). We already have the ability to type notes and highlight. I just want to be able to write the note with the stylus.
Horrible on highlighting 2/5
By createme7682
I use this app all the time and I have noticed that there’s many times the app decides it doesn’t want to keep certain highlights in my notes! Ot just simply deletes them as soon as I create them! This is getting annoying! Especially when I have created notes and they just disappear, i mine as well use another app just for note keeping! What happens when you put a lot of thought into your note and it just deletes itself? The devs need to fix this! Are there any other apps that read google books I can use!
Please Remove This If It Doesn’t Work 1/5
By imeecee
The app doesn’t work at all. It doesn’t pick up the book from the last page of other devices. What a displeasure it is to be lost in a long book. Please don’t provide this app. It is broken and doesn’t work. Apple should remove this from the App Store for non-functionality.
😤 1/5
By njsnjsnuilhbslsb
❤️😊❤️😊 you are right I wish you could read without accounts
Crashes and Freezes 1/5
By halfatatertot
The app crashes and freezes every time I open it. Before I could get it to work by closing and opening it, but now I can’t even load my library anymore and nothing I have tried has worked.
M1 iPad Pro crashes 1/5
By Yung Benjamin
The app freezes while loading then crashes 2 minutes later. Reinstalling does not help.
Freezes at startup 1/5
By 김익훈
App freezes when I log in with a specific account.
Copy and Paste? 3/5
By MGLechner
I recently installed this app on my phone. While I like it for the most part, I was befuddled to discover that there is no way to copy and paste text! This compels me to continue using Apple Books as my primary source for reading ebooks.
If a developer could reach out to me and respond to my concern that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Buggy now, pages keep going blank until app restart 2/5
By Idalton5
I have been using this app for years without issue but maybe it’s an issue with new software or whatnot. But my pages often go blank if I rotate, or if I read too much at a time I’ll turn to the next chapter and the pages will be blank until I restart the app
Improvements needed in conversion process 2/5
By App Reviewer 43
Browse, download a sample, then buy a book after reading the sample. Easy, right? Amazon has mastered this to a science with its website and Kindle reader. Not so Google Play Books and its phone app. After searching or browsing and downloading a sample on the phone version of the Google Play Store there is no link to get from the sample you read to the page where you pay for the book whose sample you have just read. In fact, you will find it challenging to find the same book again, if there are multiple versions of the same title in different languages. The book description summary is insufficient to determine whether the book you are about to purchase is the same one you read a sample of. Language, color/black and white, and other such helpful descriptors are absent. So the conversion process from a search to a sale is broken. As other reviews point out, Google Play has more variety, but what good is it if it’s a hassle to purchase a book?
Not working 5/5
By jag 1989
I have iPhone 7 suddenly play book is not working and not responding at all . Restarted iPhone and reinstalled app it’s not working
Pages tricky to navigate. 3/5
By get em tiger
When changing from portrait to landscape the book pages reverts to the copyright page no matter what page you were on. The only way to get back to your page is to page forward one by one. Navigation by contents link jumps to copyright page again.
Really easy to delete books 1/5
By Impatient Student
I read a book using this app and that experience was fine. Nothing to write home about but it got the job done.
What really is annoying is how quickly I ACCIDENTALLY (and yet *permanently*) deleted the book I had JUST FINISHED. Gone forever and I’m going to have to rebuy it.
How did I manage to do this, you might ask?
I was poking around the app for features and saw that you can create “Shelves” – basically a way to categorize your collection. The … menu next to a book goes (in this order!):
- Remove Download
- Delete from your library
- Add to shelves
Yes, the options are next to each other. So you can imagine how easy it is to accidentally click on the delete option. And if you are already in a cadence of adding books to your shelves, how easily it is to tap delete, thinking you are confirming which shelf you’re adding the book to.
I looked up how I could get the book back and it turns out I’m going to have to REBUY IT. I had just finished it and annotated it and everything.
I have two unread purchases that I will read first, but I’m not going to use this app and really won’t recommend it to anyone either.
Needs work 2/5
By Bespectacled Ape
Disappointed that a company with the resources of Google can't make this app functional. Selecting text to highlight is a chore. Simply turning pags is difficult. Google seems to know there are no other electronic options for some books, so why invest in making it right?
Effective reader app crippled by lack of sync across devices 3/5
By Xendarq
Forgetting about the fact that you can’t make purchases in the app - because that’s Apple’s fault - the real issue is that this app does not sync progress correctly across devices. Worse! Whatever point you’ve read up to on one device “sticks” and all other devices will reset back to it if you try to read there. Meaning if I’ve read to page 100 on one device, read to page 150 on another, when I sign into a third device it moves me back to 100 without asking, then moves me back to 100 on all devices! I have to keep a separate notepad of what page I’m on in every device in order to read through something. You would really, really expect Google to figure this one out.
Sometimes shows empty pages, no footnote support 3/5
By d378632
If the app is open long enough, turning the page to the next chapter shows empty pages until you close and reopen.
I can’t make tapping on footnotes work as in the web UI.
Bookmarks disappear after a few seconds 3/5
By Zurav
Whenever I set a bookmark, it just disappears.
books won't download 1/5
By datdudenocap
why?
Series 4/5
By A star is irritated
Is there a way to set it up so my books that are a part of a series so that I can read or reread them in order?
Please give us a now playing tab 4/5
By Phillysdon04
Please give us a now playing tab. If I start an audiobook take a break for a few hours then go back to this app there's no way easy way to resume the audiobook. It's a great app otherwise.
App amazing 5/5
By shutgun_21
Please keep this app forever I’ve been using this for many years and I have important education books and others books to read. I’m so busy with work and I never had the chance to read them all and study. I love this app.
It’s nearly impossible to find books 1/5
By Mobilesitessuck
How do you search for books i think the search is broken
Book purchase 1/5
By Porch Swimg
Have no idea how to purchase a book. Very difficult
Terrible Support 1/5
By Taa4573
Google has really bad support and customer service. It’s impossible to talk to someone or get help with anything. Their refund policies are also really bad.
Please fix “Search Web” highlight bug on iOS 14 1/5
By Brendobrien
Highlighting is blocked by a “Search Web” dialogue bubble. This is new on iOS 14. I hope a change is coming soon because highlighting is nearly impossible
Paid Book not Showing Up in Library in App 1/5
By ClintMan310
Paid Book not Showing Up in Library in App
Please fix PDF page number reset 1/5
By Big Tallying Guy
I’ve experienced a consistent issue for a few years where library will not remember my page number after closing app while a pdf is open. Please fix. Other than that play books is an amazingly portable and flexible digital library
Doesn’t work on IPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 1/5
By Lucky freak
On IPad can’t do anything with out the app crashing. On my Samsung app doesn’t crash but the books do not open.
Missing pages 2/5
By spn fan girl for life
The last 6 books I’ve purchased are missing pages! This is ridiculous… I’ve deleted the books and downloaded them again, I’ve done with exceptional Wi-Fi and everything and no matter what I do they are still missing half the pages! So I’m missing half the story
Love the app 5/5
By coolestguy77
Great job
Major fail — or maybe it's just on IOS 1/5
By Can I go back
Why have no other reviews mentioned that this app apparently does not have "search in text" ability? You can search among available books by title, author, subject, etc, and you can access a whole list of "help" topics that has a prominent "search help" space. But if I want to find out if (and where) the text has the phrase "war games", how do I do it? Read the whole book? If there's another way, it's very well hidden.
No funciona 1/5
By wiso77
Escuche sobre esta aplicación hoy la baje pero no busca libros dice error de red aun teniendo wifi activado
iOS Version Lacking 2/5
By T-Mobile13
Why is no search option for books in iOS? Back to Android forever.
Clunky Experience 2/5
By Jody in the Mountains
This app is not user friendly on both an Android phone and iPad. Turning pages is finicky and highlighting is next to impossible when it selects the entire page instead of 3 lines. The page views are the same as reading a PDF, with an awkward zoom capability rather than the ability to increase the text size.
Needs voice to text, otherwise good ereader 3/5
By jdrtay
The experience on this app from a purely read perspective is good, however the iOS app has less features than the android app, most notably the absence of read-aloud functionality. Can the guys at google books please fix this?
Used to play on my mini now won’t 1/5
By AnnoyedPF
This app has gotten so buggy and of course there’s no way to get any support from Google
Decent viewer with shortfalls 2/5
By Daniel Prayer
The viewer allows you to view books and is adequate.
However, while trying to study a textbook, the viewer allows only so many highlights set by the publisher, so I at one point i could not highlight anymore…what on Earth.
The viewer also does not allow you to make handwritten notes on the margins and the zoom function is not as good as a finger zoom on PDFs.
These reasons make me want to purchase future books on a different platform.
It’s good but I have some concerns. 3/5
By Beck Herrera
I do most of my digital reading on this app on the iPad Pro. My one major concern is that why can’t I make purchases through this app? Every time I want to read a new book I have to leave this app, hop onto google, buy it there, and then go back to the google play book app. It would be nice if could just purchase from the app instead, and save me a trip!
Also why can I only put a book mark on the right side only? I should be able to put a bookmark on the left side too. One time I put a bookmark and it appeared all they way in the right side, when in reality it should’ve been on the left side because that is where I actually stopped reading. Then, some time later, when I came back to pick up a where I left off in my book, I forgot that I wasn’t actually done with the left hand side, so I continued on reading only the right hand side. That whole page had a lot of detail, and I was lost in the book for a few seconds only to realize the error that this app has. I wasted like 10 minutes figuring out where I actually was.
New Version Crashes 1/5
By Gjochavez
I love this App but after the new version it just keeps crashing. I have deleted and reinstalled the app multiple times but it still keeps happening. I hope this gets fixed soon!
It keeps closing the app 1/5
By thr33nm3
I downloaded the app. And when I go to open it it closes?? Why is that . My device is up to date and I can’t seem to read the book I have in my goggle account?
Any help would be much appreciated
It’s good but 3/5
By Dimpleface79
Its good but i just downloaded to my iphone i open the app but it wont open it kicks me out
