Bookshare Reader

The Bookshare Reader app is a good start but it needs work, especially in navigation. If I stop reading for a few minutes, and then go back, I often get a blank white page. This happens after I have downloaded the book to my iPad Pro. Also, often, when I click on the chapter/content list, only the first 4-5 chapters will be listed. I have to actually close the app and open it back up to get the full Table of Contents. The app is much more convenient than having to read books on the web, but it still needs improvement.

Hello again, my friends hope that everyone’s doing back to suggest any major in improvement or the next big update even though this one’s small and felt like it was not as the title suggest I would like for my downloaded book when opening the app, the recent books because it shows the books, I read and deleted To make space but I know that you guys are continuously working to make the app better so no rush. This is just a suggestion on my part and thank you for everything as usual. Hope to hear from you soon.

Voice Dream Reader is planning on removing lifetime licensing for users who have previously purchased the product on 5/1. It’s even more important that this app continues to be improved for the influx of users that aren’t willing to pay a yearly subscription on top of their Bookshare subscription, just to read a book. My two big asks/requests: Please add the ability to listen to human narrated audiobooks and ability to “Read Now” on periodicals. Thanks Bookshare Reader dev team! Also: Ability to listen to books in the background. VoiceOver gestures to change pages would also be nice.

As somebody that has a reading disability, I really like books share I’ve used it for many years and really enjoy using it. I like how easy that app is to use. I like the fact that when you login on multiple devices with your account, you can instantly access your Books and pick up from where you left off, I also like the fact that you don’t have to download every book that you want to read. It’s a really great app. I’ve used it for many years and really enjoy using it.

This app does not allow me to listen to the books audio because of copyright. I signed in, I’m not a student, and I do not need a approval from a teacher!😡 Please fix this issue immediately. Thank you.

This app is much better than it was at launch, but it still lacks a feature I think a lot of people would appreciate. When you play a book and leave the app by either returning to your home screen or locking the screen, the book stops playing. I would like playback to continue once the screen is locked, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. I believe that's one of the reasons people are so hesitant to switch to it fulltime.

So I downloaded this book share app not for school, but for me to read books personally and every time I try to read a book it says that I do not have permission to download or read the book and I need a teacher to assign it to me I didn’t download this book for school work because we have all of our school books in braille or large print for me and the other VI kids I really wish you guys would make this app accessible for students without making them have to have a teacher assign them the book it’s really annoying. I hope you guys fix this in future app versions

Trying this app for my son who will be eight and is unable to read. The app is clunky. I’m trying to figure out if not all picture books populate in the app with pictures. After downloading the apps, I’m unable to play videos from other sources. I’m not sure what value if this will bring to my son unless the user experience is improved. I’ll update the review if the app experience improves.

Great app for reading bookshare books. I really enjoy the reading style and it’s very easy to both read and listen to audio. Although, I wish there was a where am I feature, so I can know where I am in a book, either in pages or percentage. Other than that, love the app.

Good morning Bookshare reader developer my name is Ulises Gomez, I really enjoy this application a lot I would like to see the background play future on a future update. Keep them coming. I love Bookshare Reader.

Works ok, sometimes the next chapter won’t load and I have to quit the app and reload it to turn to the new chapter. Little glitchy but best interface yet for my VI son.

This app is apparently meant to be used only while holding the phone and continuously reading. I can’t use headphones to pause or stuff the voice. I can’t put the phone in my pocket because the playback stops if I turn off the screen if I leave the screen on then I need to avoid touching the phone.

Got tired of fighting with my Brl tab. The mobile app is way easier. I love listening to books on here. Thank you.

Can you please make update this app to listen to a book when your phone is off

Nice to have a dedicated app for reading bookshare books. Please add the ability to download and read human narrated audiobooks.

now impossible to delete searched titles from library even if book is one that won't be downloaded because details for book are not what is wanted.

When I tap Pause and then Play, it typically restarts from the beginning of the chapter. This means that there is effectively no Pause or Stop function. This is a big deal. As mentioned in another review, the different voices don’t indicate what language they speak. This absence make the voices essentially useless. There are probably more than 50 different voices. After finding out that the first 15 voices aren’t even your language, are you really going to check the remaining 40? In addition, after you play a sample, you have to start from the first. So, if you have done the first 21 voices, you now have to go through all the 21 voices to sample the 22nd. In addition, it’s not even clear which voice you have selected. For example, I still don’t know what the default voice is. Fortunately, it’s good enough for me, and I can always go back to it by resetting audio settings. Thus, this select voice feature is worse than useless because it only wasted my time. But I would fix the Play / Pause issue first. That is what makes this difficult to recommend except for the most casual of reads. This is an essential app. I am really glad they came out with this. The problems should not be difficult to fix, and I really hope they fix them soon. Bookshare is a great service.

Spinning ball of death as it acts like it’s loading a book. That or it says “download error”

I can’t read bluey 🤬 it’s will not load

The app looks like a phone screen on my iPad, only taking up the center third. This makes it tough to use large print. Still can’t access my reading lists. I thought they would have addressed this before the big roll out. I got an email about the new app so I was hopeful that things would be more functional.

I am a teacher of students with visual impairments, and I use bookshare quite a bit with students. All visually impaired students in our school district use the Dolphin Reader application to access bookshare, and it is a bit more functional than this app. I think the synthesized speech that reads the texts in this app is slightly better, but students have more control in terms of choosing how the text is read and can choose which word the reader begins reading. I like that this app is a standalone reader for Bookshare, but the app didn't meet the expectations I had based on the organization... It's still a free app though, so I won't hold it against the organization for that reason.

This is terrible! The original app BookShare used (Read2Go), while it had horrible voices worked! This barely functions. The speed is not as easily adjustable, it cuts off randomly and it only works if the phone ringer is on so reading is cut off by notifications. I’m so disappointed at this step backwards. Only good thing is the variety of voices but I can get that in other apps though downloading BookShare media differently. So much for going back to a one stop shop. Please fix this.

Great concept, week execution. The only way you can read if you're actually listening to the book, is paragraph by paragraph. That needs to be fixed. Also, when you are selecting a voice, you have to select through several of them, because they are not marked as to what languages they use.

The issues with this app make it functionally unusable. There is no functional stop and start button. The speed options are limited, and you have to constantly touch the screen or else the phone will turn off. There must be somebody at this company that can make a usable product for the people with disabilities that rely on them.

Download Errors

Grateful that I have VoiceDream reader so I can easily get books from Bookshare and read them with my voiceover voice because I just downloaded this app so I could read an audio book. I cannot even login as a voiceover user with an iPhone 11 and iOS 17.1.2. For being a company who caters to visually impaired people I would expect your app to have correct coding for Text fields. Usually I can double tap on the Text field and then type or paste my username and password. I have tried turning screen recognition on which can sometimes help, but the edit option is not even Offered when I spin my rotor. This tells me that the app is not coded correctly for form controls. Very disappointed!

Hello, I am totally blind and downloaded this app because I’m an avid reader, a book share member, and I’m very adept at using my iPhone, computer, and braille note taker. I am not even able to log into this app. When I click on the username or password text field, it doesn’t do anything, and when I try to type in the username password, either with the keyboard on my iPhone, or well hooked up to my braille display, it does not actually type it in. I am very disappointed as I love reading and listening to books and I read books on my phone all the time so I was looking forward to this app but it seems I cannot even use it.