Playback speed needs improvement 3/5
By misstxbelle
The audio playback speed needs more options. It jumps from 1.0 to 1.25
There should be an option for 1.1 and 1.2, etc. Even Chirp has these gradual increases.
Can’t download 1/5
By HotlipsandCaveman
Have 83 books I have purchased. This app used to be great. But the last 6 books I have bought I can’t download and read offline. Absolutely a huge waste.
You can’t Bookmark Audiobooks!! 1/5
By carrpatr
Kobo doesn’t have the technology on this app to bookmark an Audiobook nor do they plan on fixing it!
I would not recommend this app because of the. Bookmarks are SO IMPORTANT
App itself is OK, purchased content trapped 2/5
By Jae. W.
There’s literally no other way to listen to the audiobooks I purchased, except through this app. Can’t download it. Can’t listen to it on the website. You have no other choice, you *have* to use this app. Back to Audible, I guess.
Can’t access many audiobooks that I paid for. 2/5
By Beornbir
This works fine for the ones that work, however, a bunch of them won’t download and don’t respond when I try to fix the account.
Update: After an hour with tech-support, three of the five problem books were fixed. Unfortunately, for the other two, they could not fix so they gave me a “refund“. But based on current prices, my two books won’t even buy me one comparable book at today’s prices. I’ll stick with Audible for audiobooks in the future.
needs text to speech 2/5
By NewYorkNewYawk
Absolutely missing this major ereader function
Neat app - can annotate with Apple Pencil 5/5
By Home $$ guy
I’ve been using this app for several months now after using using Apple’s Book app for many years prior. I prefer Kobo’s ability to adjust margins and line spacing, as well as the Kobo interface in general. Also just discovered that I can leave annotated, handwritten notes in page margins using the Apple Pencil, which I find delightful. I’ve always found that being able to leave notes like this enhances my reading/thinking experience.
No Longer Works 1/5
By SunnyWise
Opens and shuts down. It’s dead.
No quoting, no sharing 3/5
By mssdo
In this day and age, it’s the ONLY reading app that doesn’t allow quoting/copying/sharing excerpts from the digital books. When you use e-books for research as well, please tell me a good reason to be a loyal customer here instead of elsewhere.
Trouble opening audio book 1/5
By AB1o1
I spent hrs trying to figure out . It’s not user friend my app
Reading locally on my iPhone, not working, download error w new version 1/5
By TomD__
Downloads to local phone device not working Very frustrating not being able to read my kobo books locally on my phone via the app. Be warned.
Vivid images 5/5
By KDSykes
The reading of this book was excellent, and I transformed the book into vivid images of each scene and chapter. I kept wanting to read more and very much enjoyed the characters. It did end abruptly, so I can only hope there is a sequel!
Better and better! 5/5
By _jtp8084
Really like the updates over the past few months. Writing feature was not expected but so great to have for my more technical reads! I’d love to get widgets so I can dive into my current read and see it from my Home Screen. 🙏 Keep up the great work!!
Missing basic features 2/5
By Lorephoenix
No app wide dark mode. When your whole app is white and black, how do you not have a native dark mode option!?
No default ebook settings.
Can’t import books from files.
Sure I understand there’s no store access, but could i at least be able to browse and create a wish list!? And be able to tailor the recommended books to what i want to look for. Free books have no filters or search function.
Doesn’t sync added files from app to desktop. I can understand not wanting to host the file data, but i should at least be able to see that I’ve added a file to my account, and maybe where it is.
Why two stars? It opens books way faster than kindle and there isn’t a lot UI bloat. Homepage is customizable. It looks sleek, but like, there’s just nothing to do. I really want to like it and get away from the rainforest, but it’s just so… empty. (Most if this also applies to the PC app. Like seriously, I can’t add files to ‘my ebooks’ in preparation for my kobo to arrive!?)
pretty unstable 1/5
By kevenhom
can’t sync my books correctly, always show can’t update library. It does work of PC app, but this app in whatever iPad or iPhone is failure and joke
Waste of time 1/5
By Alberta Einsteinski
I joined the 30 day free trial, entered my charge card for the monthly fee and received an email verifying my account. The email provided a link to the web site, but audiobooks are not accessible there. I downloaded the app, but it will not sync with my account and my purchase is not showing up there.
Trash App 1/5
By Firstamendmentgirl
Unable to see my books, unable to sign out, and after deleting the app, I’m unable to sign in. This is ridiculous.
The HIGHLIGHTING is horrible 3/5
By mittelschmerz1990
Like many other reviewers, I started using Kobo’s app and ereader as an Amazon Kindle alternative. For the most part, I’m quite happy with the app. The library sorting is useful, the graphics and user interface are nice, and syncing across my devices works great. The margin, alignment, and font options are more extensive than other apps which is really great.
I could not be more unhappy with the highlighting and annotation functions in the app (the ereader does these functions perfectly well; this seems to be exclusively app/iPhone related). It stops in the middle of a word, it doesn’t include punctuation (including parentheses, quotation marks, periods, commas), and it will snap to stop a highlight in the middle of a word. Trying to drag the dots does nothing helpful. Continuing a highlight to the next page is absolutely impossible, resulting in multiple separate entries on the Annotations page. The Annotations page itself is absolutely bonkers and has no sorting whatsoever (not in terms of book/page/chapter order or in terms of “most recent”). As a person who LOVES to highlight and annotate on the ereader and on my other ereader apps, this clunky highlighting is a MAJOR frustration and bothers me every single time I use the app.
I also don’t understand why I can see my percent progress on my ereader, and from the app homepage, but not while I’m reading my book.
If these features could be improved or fully rectified, it would be a stellar app.
Very hard to navigate and find the book you want to either read or listen to 1/5
By nickname stuidentry
Ya
Don’t ever close the app! 2/5
By Unatommer
App freezes for about one minute when i open it on my iPad mini 6 or iPhone 11. Also, highlighting is quite unresponsive. Very unimpressed with this program vs the Kindle app.
Very bad 1/5
By HazelVW
All the time having a problem with my iPhone and my laptop I cannot finish to read one book.
books won’t open 1/5
By LpDncPikachu69
kinda useless if the book doesn’t open and keeps asking to be redownloaded.
So glitchy 1/5
By Marnaz80
3/4 books purchased don’t open in the app and have to read them web-based. Emailed Customer care email - has not been helpful in the past. The web-based option skips ahead and loses my place anytime I pause from reading.
Serious lag 2/5
By dmclean62
This new version has a high lag when turning pages. Since I previously used this app on an older iPad with no trouble, this indicates a serious failure by whoever is in charge of development.
Stats don’t sync with Kobo ereader 1/5
By jostyee
I usually read on my ereader and iOS app stats are almost blank
Bad app reader 1/5
By trufa95
I can’t read any books that I purchased from IBS bookstore. Keep tell me that there’s a error. Very bad customer service. They didn’t do anything so far to fix the problem
Audiobooks & ebooks 3/5
By innocentoldguy
Hey, Kobo. This app could be a five-star experience if you could listen to the audiobook version of a title AND read the ebook along with it at the same time (I always buy both the ebook and audiobook and read both simultaneously because I can read a lot faster that way). I would buy all my ebooks and audiobooks from you if you supported this. As it is, I have to buy my audiobooks elsewhere, which is a pain.
Poor function 1/5
By Dr JCH
Cannot download any of my books
Kobo 1/5
By Sad nickname default
It is less convenient moving from a page in kobo to getting out of the book than it should be. Exasperating. I am not being txts via kobo anymore
WASTE OF TIME 1/5
By nik1973
Tried it through the Walmart plus subscription. The only books available were the “free” ones. And they were the “trashy sex” novels. Don’t get me wrong, I am here for those too. But there wasn’t anything else to round out the options. I entered some titles to see if they would at least be available for purchase… no dice. I’m deleting my account and the app. Immediately.
Excelente App 5/5
By Medvetz63
Este app es miles de veces mejor de lo que ofrece Amazon. Los precios son baratísimos.
Very unuser friendly 1/5
By Scammed 9999
Still can’t get it to sync and it won’t let me get to my library books. Pitiful help topics and lightweight tutorials that tell you next to nothing
史上最爛 1/5
By cookie dozer lover
多方比較之後確定只在kobo買書，閱讀器很喜歡，可是沒想到app從去年每次打開就是各種理由當機，非常後悔透過kobo買這麼多書，還儲值。
各位使用者請三思。
Price/sign up 1/5
By sethman490
Google said that the app was free to use I was then told that I had to buy the books
I also do not know where to make an account for kobo and the app only says log in
App was decent until latest update 1/5
By Gimpyelf
This app was pretty good until the last update. Now the largest font is smaller than 75% of Kindle’s largest font, meaning it’s very small. I am visually impaired and the largest font is now way too tiny! I paid more than $100 for ebooks I can no longer read because the font at the largest setting is way too small. I already contacted Kobo’s customer service and the response I got was lackluster at best. Update- font size improved, but still needs to be larger. Update-font back to tiny size that is unreadable! UPDATE- newest update did NOT fix font issue! UPDATE- newest update STILL hasn’t fixed the small font issue. Obviously, this company doesn’t care about those with vision issues. I am tempted to contact an attorney at this point, because I spent over $100 on ebooks I can’t read and the ereader they sent me is as visually impaired unfriendly as their app has become (as originally, in the app you could change the font size of any book to large print, now some remain tiny no matter what you set it at with the app and despite telling them I needed both large print AND dark mode, they sent me an ereader that didn’t have a dark mode)! UPDATE: newest app update STILL hasn’t fixed the font size issue! I will no longer buy any books from this company, as they obviously don’t care about customers with vision issues. And don’t tell me to contact support. I already did and they sent me an ereader with no dark mode, despite me specifically mentioning I needed dark mode and large font. UPDATE: new update made the situation worse! Changes you select don’t stay when you close out of app (like night mode) and recent purchases from the website DO NOT SHOW UP IN APP! Seriously, ever time you “fix” the app, it has even more glitches than before!
Updates ruined app 2/5
By Kari1962
Updates ruined app. It constantly restarts; Changes background color; tries to change page; opens on wrong page.
Tap the middle of you page 5/5
By Patricia Vi
Once you tap the middle of your page, you can go from day to night reading, change font size, etc. Very easy! Just wish the company would tell us that up front instead of searching how newer versions of the app work!
Doesn’t work 1/5
By Vincel1
Books purchased thru the app on computer do not open in the iphone app . Tried everything, got in touch with customer service and they also could not get it to work. ESCALATE THE ISSUE TO THE RELEVANT DEPARTMENT - CONNECTION ISSUES BTW THE APP ON IPHONE AND APP ON COMPUTER/ WEBSITE
Credits not available on iPhone app 1/5
By Bnmlkjjhp
Difficult purchase navigation when using a credit. No tutorial or help features.
Was one of my favorites 2/5
By CandyG
Now won’t let download to my phone or tablet to read, please fix. Both phone and tablet are fully updated.
Doesn’t allow me to read my purchased book 1/5
By CK1234565
Continuous download errors
Very poor user interface and experience 1/5
By DaveK33
Unbelievably no dark mode. Only bright lights for reading is ridiculous nowadays. Very hard to navigate this app, nothing much makes sense in this application. I hope the kobo reader I ordered is more intuitive to use than this app. Look at your competitors for some clues and better ideas. If the device like an iPhone has dark mode the apps that run on it should also display in dark mode. The themes are really worthless for a reading background - why no dark theme, haha! Crazy.
You would think that you could buy ebooks on an ereader app, I can’t find anywhere after searching all the screens I can navigate to any way to purchase ebooks from this app.
Terrible, outrageous and shameful 1/5
By wherearemybooks??
This app is not opening my books. Never experienced anything like this before. Not to mention that, if you ask for help, they sent you a template answer which does not solve the issue
Purchase a book - not opening at all 1/5
By William USA NY 2015
Ourchased an ebook on kobo website. Downloaded in the APP and now I always received the error and I cannot open.
Helped me decide my next e-reader 5/5
By Pennybink
Kindle keyboard though still worked recently before I deactivated it has me considering an upgrade. So I have been debating whether to wait on a 2023 or consider Kobo. Decided to test Kobo app. Likely I was missing creating an account using just email, but knew I would never link it to any other account of mine. Went to Safari and managed to create an account. Back to app. Not sure I want to keep playing around with it. As a free ebook to test the app, seems any settings I apply once I close out of app are lost. Think it will be waiting on Kindle paperwhite to come out with a new version. I figure if an app is too much work I don’t want to buy the e-reader. So the app experience was awesome in helping me decide! I know I will still make attempts with that one free e-book and see if later Kobo gets it right. For now, it’s a no.
Why’s everything in Spanish ?!?? 1/5
By josoehmea
WTH
Errors downloading purchased books 1/5
By allinavl
Error when I try to download books that I have purchased.
Great app when it works - iPad 2/5
By Jerry O'Neill
I have experienced ed a great deal of difficulty getting the app work to work on an iPad. The Kobo instructions on how to fix the problem are useless.
Despite having a solid wifi connection and being able to update the Kobo e-reader, it will not update the books on my iPad.
Frustrating 1/5
By Tashaliv3
I used to love this app, but for whatever reason in one of the updates in the last six months, anytime I get to certain chapters in the book I’m reading, the next three to four chapters don’t load. (For example: get to end of chapter 12 and chapters 13-15 don’t load and I can only continue at chapter 16) it’s extremely frustrating as I’ve paid for the books and now I can only read them through a browser in a weird format. I’ve done all of the troubleshooting guides and nothing has worked so far.
