Google Play Books & Audiobooks

Book
Rating
4.5 (9.5K)
Size
77.7 MB
Age rating
4+
Current version
6.6.0
Price
Free
Seller
Google
Last update
7 months ago
Version OS
16.0 or later
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User Reviews for Google Play Books & Audiobooks

4.46 out of 5
9.5K Ratings
7 years ago, Noblueyes
Great Reader App
As a reader app it does the job solidly! I can easily read any book I have purchased through Google however the browsing abilities of the app are severely lacking. I don't want to peruse articles as much as I want to look for more books I might find an interest in. When opening the app there is a decent "recommended for you" list but with no way to change or extend the list, search a new list or simply refresh the list without going through a "build your interests" type form. Obviously, I can browse on a desktop or laptop but that isn't as convenient as being able to do it from the same device I just finished reading from. It could also benefit from manipulating the screen timer. It's quite frustrating to constantly have to unlock the phone because the screen times itself out on every page.
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11 months ago, Cameyboi
So Unhappy I’m Crying
Sat there for hours waiting for a book to release. Refreshed for hours and hours and hours. The book didn’t charge to my account even though I preordered it way back on announcement day. Your app doesn’t show the cost of a book or the purchase button on the books store page, for some reason you can only see it on a computer. For years I’ve been struggling with having to switch to a desktop to buy books. After hours and hours and hours trying to refresh to get to my book, I tried my computer and found out the books I preordered didn’t purchase and were sitting there waiting for me to buy again. I’ve been sitting here. Waiting. And your app didn’t even tell me that my order was cancelled AND I couldn’t see that the book was ready for me to buy because your app doesn’t tell you that. Im so unhappy that I’ve been sitting here crying in frustration and I can’t even bring myself to read this book I’ve been waiting on since 2011 now that it’s in my library. What a horrible experience. I don’t care why you don’t have the purchase button in the app and I don’t care why you didn't send me a notification that my preorder was cancelled or didn’t go through, this app is completely ruined for me. Used to be a proud user, now I’m hateful and frustrated and it’s ruined my experience for this book in particular.
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2 years ago, Beck Herrera
It’s good but I have some concerns.
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.
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5 years ago, Bibeku
Great app that is far more better than other apps but still more to do
I found this app great, still there are lot of things to improve to make it better. The great thing is that it has best 3d flipping animation while turning pages and it also syncs book to its drive, it can read both pdf and epub though it would better if it could read azw3, djvu, mobi, etc. it would also be better if i could put on some notes in it also it has some issues to be fixed while, i turn on voice for book it shuts off while going to another page simply it could read only a page at a time. i cant edit highlights i've previously made, to edit those highlight i should have to delete whole selected highlight and should be made again. To make this app better if user could make folders to separate different files. It would be great and i would be so thankful if the above issues and features would be upgraded. Thankyou for listening me.
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4 years ago, Tiarra.
Can’t purchase books in an app for books
I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Google Books over the years. I used it some years ago for school, but quickly switched to Books when I got my first iPad. A few months ago I went back to this app to purchase a book in another language. I love that there’s a specific button for translation, but that’s about it. Sometimes notes show up, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they move. And, being in the margin, they’re difficult to retrieve without turning the page, if it opens at all. Also. I don’t know what happened between when I purchased the book (summer 2020) and now (winter 2020), but now purchasing books in the app is disabled. The prices aren’t even listed. I’ve noticed that the Google/Android model involves needing different apps for functions that could be done by one app, but not being able to purchase books in an app designed for reading books seems overwhelmingly defeatist.
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4 years ago, LydLydLyd
DONT PICK this if Other Option Exists
Been using this to read a bestseller technical book for the past 3 months. I've observed the following issues so far: 1. Highlight colors mismatch: I use both web browser version and iOS to read for convenience. When I highlight using blue or red in web browser, the highlights are displayed as green or yellow in iOS app. This is really annoying because I highlight a different category of things in green/yellow. This mixes them up. This is a really small but obvious and disturbing friction for users. 2. Images disappear: I paid $33 for the ebook, the same price as its paper copy. This I'm expecting the same content. However, certain images are not available in iOS app. 3. Highlight "wiggles": countless times when I highlighted, either a word or a sentence, the highlight would wiggle. For example, if a word appears in both the subtitle and the paragraph, when I highlight the one in the paragraph, the highlight would show up on the subtitle. When I highlight a sentence, the highlight will be displayed off by several words or even characters. 4. Highlight disappears: when the highlights don't wiggle, they would sometimes disappear. They'll still show up in the list of notes, but they stay invisible on the page. They GHOST you. 5. My thumbs are too tired to type more but I'm sure I observed more... I rarely rate apps, let alone writing a review this long, but 4.6/5 is beyond inconceivable.
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6 years ago, Slappy18
No Images
All my purchased books have no images. Anytime there is supposed to be an image, it just says “image not available”, including on all the covers and photo inserts. When I download a sample, it does display the image! Does not make sense to me, and this just started only two days ago. I will wait to purchase any more books on my list for google play books until this is fixed. Other than this, it is (was) the highest quality of all the ebook apps. UPDATE: I thought it was fixed as I was getting images there for awhile, tried downloading some more books and “image not available” is occurring again! Please fix so I can always see the images when I open the book, I wii wait until this is finally fixed before making amy more purchases. Other than this glitch, all is good.
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1 month ago, iAmSpams
Add Current Time Feature
I love Google Playbooks app more than any of the popular reading apps. I really like its aesthetics, really appeals to me. However, biggest downfall is that it does not currently display the current time when reading. I personally like to indulge in a good book between 12-2 AM. But sometimes I get too into it and it’s like 3 AM. I would like to have the feature to display the current time. I think at the top middle of the screen would be the best. Also, I’m a programmer, so I know this is not hard to implement at all. If others do not want the time, then just make an if statement that if they tapped on the time, make it disappear from the screen. Tap the spot again to bring it back. You can also just implement a switch.
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9 months ago, Ant.TH
Decent ebook reader
Decent ebook reader. Easy to sync ebooks through your Google account, or by purchasing the ebooks. Feature Request 1: Vertical scrolling. Flipping through pages is fine and all, but for faster readers, vertical scrolling makes the reading experience much more pleasant. Feature Request 2: List by Author should only show authors. For those with a lot of ebooks, the most logical sort method is by authors. However, the ebooks, while sorted by authors, still lists every ebook. When you sort by authors, it should only list the name of the author and not the individual books. Click the author’s name to expand and view the books under the author. This would make searching for a particular book faster.
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6 years ago, TRexF14
Broken - not a quality app
App will not download or display books comprised of images (comic books). The app will show the download is complete, but all pages will be “image not downloaded.” Until recently, deleting a bad download and trying again would sometimes fix this issue - but not anymore. Application has options “delete download” and “delete from library” right next to each other in the menu. If you accidentally delete from library, you lose the book - permanently. Google can’t restore the original purchase, they can only give you a refund - you have to contact support directly for this. Until the refund is processed, you cannot purchase the accidentally deleted book again, either. The app used to work for comics, but no longer. You are probably better off trying to purchase and read comics via the comic publishers own apps. Hopefully Google fixes this issue with either the content or the app soon.
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6 years ago, taylormicky
Good enough I guess
(TLDR: no page forward from left side of screen) Pros compared to native iBooks: - text size, font, spacing far more customizable - text fills to the edge of the screen (finally!) - navigation to the "bookstore" is hidden in the left toolbar (no more tapping 4 different bottom-row icons by accident when I just want to read books from my library) - interface just "feels" more updated/streamlined Cons: - NO OPTION TO PAGE FORWARD WHEN TAPPING THE LEFT SIDE OF THE SCREEN. This is my biggest issue with the app. If you don't mind, then you'll probably really like the app. It might make it almost unusable for me - no ability to sort books into folders (while convenient in iBooks, the fact that they force an "all books" main screen instead of just uncategorized books makes it worthless to me, so in that regards it's not a big issue that play books doesn't have it) I only use it to read uploaded epubs so I don't know how everything looks for purchased books. However, I would like the opportunity to customize the blank cover that shows up with uploaded books, with my own image or text. That alone would entice me to use this app even without the ability to page forward from the left of the screen.
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2 years ago, Xendarq
Effective reader app crippled by lack of sync across devices
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.
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7 years ago, BenGenGal
Eh...
I’m giving this four stars because in some cases it seems to work well. My biggest complaint is getting samples of books. I like the ability to view a sample... but once a sample, always a sample... in the app anyway. I purchased the full book and can read the entire book on the browser but as soon as I go back to the app it’s a sample again. I’ve tried deleting the download and even removing the title and then going back to the full book on the web browser and clicking “view in app”. Even if I’m in chapter one on the browser when I click to view in app, it goes back to the introduction and says none of the chapters are able to be viewed. Like it’s still a sample. So I’m annoyed with that but otherwise the app seems okay.
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8 months ago, Renter7532
Books disappeared!? 😡
Got on here to read my book that I was in the middle of while I eat breakfast before I go to work, like I always do. All of my books are missing, including the one I was in the middle of and all of my purchased books. What is going on?? I need this fixed immediately!! Some of those books I paid for!! Update: several days later I finally got a response but the issue was fixed rather quickly. I do enjoy using this app and have for years. I will now upgrade from a 1 star to a 4 star
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3 years ago, Brialien
App icon unrelated to reading
Great app, my main one for reading ebooks. But guys, I’ve been using this app for years, and I still forget this is the app I use because the app icon doesn’t look like a book, nor anything related to reading. It’s just a triangle, and if you get out a microscope you can see a tiny bookmark on it. Since bookmarks are used by web browsers too tho it’s hardly a direct association to reading. I don’t use google play much so I don’t recognize the triangle from google play. Google has rebranded all of their main app logos like gmail like 6 times this year, could y’all do that for google books? Seriously
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6 years ago, pbbbbbbbbbbt!
I guess it works because you can read books
Other than that, forget it. Forget sorting your books, looking up word definitions or doing searches for words outside of the app. The search function used to work until Google ‘fixed’ it in an update. Now the search function just loads your web browser to the Google home page. Thanks Google! The bookmarks function is clunky at best. Translation rarely works as expected. Pages often get cut off at random, or the app sticks on a page and has to be rebooted. Google really should take a page from the Kindle app, which has far and away superior functionality on all of these fronts. I only use this app to read the books my partner has downloaded to it, otherwise I avoid it because it’s seriously frustrating.
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3 years ago, Ben_225
Could be much better
I only use this for audiobooks so far (I’m on my third book), and it is competent on this function. Especially, I like how it will go back to the start of a sentence whenever you begin playback, which means you are never lost about what is being discussed. HOWEVER. The inability to buy books through the app is absolutely baffling. So much can be done through mobile these days; how can a company such as Google completely hollow out this app’s potential by making people go buy books on a desktop, just to listen on mobile. This seems like such a blatant omission that there must be some explanation for why it’s not included, but it definitely hurts the user experience. Do better Google
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3 years ago, Jay07Rose
Simple Review
I would never lie and say I am an avid reader, but there are some things that catch my interest. This app's library has not let me down yet! I am extremely impressed by what they consider to be a "sample". There idea of a sample is pretty lengthy and almost to the point that you forgot that you will need to actually purchase the particular book you are reading to complete it. The options to bookmark, easily navigate through the book & highlight makes this a great electronic option for those who prefer or choose to go this route.
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7 years ago, Harquebusier
Great stuff
There is no other app for reading old, obscure works (for free in most cases) but Google Play. With it, I've read Joseph Priestley's "Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit" and I'm partway through his "Corruptions of Christianity." Also, George Berkeley's "Alciphron." Now I've moved on to Sir Humphrey Davy's "Elements of Chemical Philosophy," books that no one in their right mind would spend time on, but still so much fun. This is only augmented by the ability to highlight in five colors and to make your own footnotes. You can define most words in the text or else search for them on the web. I highly recommend this for any fan of dead authors.
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2 years ago, Impatient Student
Really easy to delete books
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.
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6 years ago, Feltronc
Don’t Use for Audiobooks Yet
I gave Google’s new Audiobooks support a chance, because I own Google Home products. Playback constantly fails, and then it will not remember the last playback location, returning to the one before it failed. This happens when using voice commands with your Google Home or when casting from this app. The only way playback won’t fail is you either play it locally on your phone or use Bluetooth, which is what I was doing before (and will now return to doing) with Audible. So for ebooks? Sure, go ahead and get it. But if you’re looking to start using this for your new audiobooks purchases, I must suggest you hold off until Google works out all the kinks and it doesn’t feel like a beta feature anymore.
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7 years ago, Silli5E
☹️ bad update
I love this app as depending on the system you use you can listen to your books which is a feature I love. I wish it read PDF books as well however, for some reason the latest update has every book regardless of form errors out. All I get is a message saying there was an error uploading the file. Just to be on the safe side I have tried to re-download one of my previously downloaded books from my IF app (Instafreebie) and I still get an upload error message. Outside of this first and only issue I have had with this app I would give it five stars however the fact that it’s not working for any new books I buy or books from the authors I review for I have to give it 1 star as I am now forced to use other reading apps rather than the one I want to use.
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7 years ago, lebvendors
Caveat emptor
Select titles stop opening or cut off text. Google tech support personnel untrained to resolve problems with google play books app on iPhones. Malfunctioning titles deleted from google play books library on iPhones are not replaceable. Requests emailed to google customer service to receive a functioning copy of a malfunctioning title are ignored. Google customer support drops calls. Google automated refund system rejects valid refund requests and requires manual override by customer support personnel. (To obtain my refund for a malfunctioning title, I had to call customer support three [3] times. Customer support had to call me back three [3] times.) Tone of service of google customer support personnel is very good; but google customer support personnel lack the training and tools to resolve problems after the sale. Buyer beware.
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3 months ago, LazyReader01
Tts features seemingly nonexistent
Your help section spouts nonsense about using voice over to read the book aloud for me since you guys are to lazy to include a read aloud button by default. You don’t even need to use your own voices. Just default to my device default it’s all set up. I hate having to flip pages I just want it to read the books I paid for to me while I’m busy working. Instead I have to read literally anything else with much better reader apps but that’s the part that is making me mad all the money I spent on my good play books library is going to waste since it doesn’t work for what I need it for at all with my iPhone. This alone is enough for 0 star from me but sadly you have to pick at least 1
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4 years ago, Freelancerjourn
No feature to keep audiobooks playing in background. Seriously?
I recently decided to give Google audiobooks a try. I just downloaded a Google audibook. I started playing it, then navigated away from the app so that I could check email. Once I navigated away from the app, the audiobook stopped playing. Seriously? How far behind the times do you have to be? Audible, Kobo book audibooks, Nook audibooks. What do they all have in common? As long as you didn’t press the stop button, the audio continues playing after you navigate away from the app. Google Books needs to be update ASAP to allow for background audio for audiobooks; meaning, as long as you don’t hit the stop button, the audibook keeps playing even after you navigate away from the Google Books app.
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7 months ago, Chrstphre
Very Confusing ( ! )
This app seems to allow me to have access to a lot of very nice books, but I can’t figure out how to buy them. Apparently I have to go to the Google App website, but I can’t seem to find that either, and in comparison, the Kindle Reader app on my iPad doesn’t allow me to buy books through it either — although I can download Kindle Unlimited Books through the app, I have to go to the website to actually buy them, so I figured that out, but I can’t figure out this Google Books app website access point ( ? ) I don’t understand why these apps make it so difficult for me to actually buy these books ???
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3 years ago, GN4361
Great app but I want more
The UI is perfect and simple. I read and listened to dozens of books and audiobooks. However, I just want one feature added so I can read anywhere. One place I find it hard to read is on buses or cars when I’m a passenger. My iPad or phones shakes way to much when I’m reading. Can developers add a feature to like book stabilize when I’m reading a book? So if I shake my phone the book I’m reading is not interrupted from vibrations. It’s kind of like the video stabilization on a GoPro. Be super awesome. Thanks for a great app so far.
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2 years ago, x0899
Works well but UX/design under par
This app works well enough to allow me to simply read my books and take notes… but that’s really all it is. The design interface is bare minimum with no real features to write home about. Compared to the features and usability of Apple’s Books app, this one is pretty basic and under performs what I’ve seen Google put into their other applications and products. Additionally, I am unable to purchase books through it (is this an Apple issue?) which isn’t convenient by any means. This app just feels like it’s due a well deserved refresh and overhaul.
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5 years ago, Venice Blair Sky
Do you want easy then this is the right one?
My daughter recommended this app because both of us were taking a course that required lots of reading, questions, & class participation. Extra research was required to complete the course. I used other books but I couldn’t under line or add notes to references attached to the original text. So I finally listened to her & switched to Google Play Books. WOW!!!!! Immediate results: my concentration was greatly improved & studying time was decrease drastically. Thanks So Much!!!!!
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6 years ago, feeling unwanted
Highlights messed up
The book reader does fine, however the display often messes up. I do a lot of highlighting, in various colors. When reading a chapter I previously used some highlighting on, sometimes I’ll turn the page and the entire page is highlighted one color, turn the page the entire page is highlighted another color, turn the page and things are back to normal. If I click anywhere on the page that’s completely highlighted, and hit delete the entire page’s highlighting disappears, but I don’t know if what I wanted to be highlighted also disappears. I hope they fix this bug.
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7 years ago, MrsEvilBrooks
Thank God for Google
I'm so thankful that Google decided to digitize and preserve the writings that may have been lost in this digital era. Their work has been a treasure trove for people like me who feel that the only true way to have a complete picture of our past is to continue to read the writings of those who have preceded us. And if we don't know our history we are sure to repeat the worst parts of it. Thanks, Google. Now I can take thousands of interesting and thoughtful people with me in my relatively tiny purse.
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7 years ago, Anonymous Group
Great for text books!!!
I am a college student and I just love how easy it is to upload PDF versions of textbooks to google play on my computer and then view the on my phone. Google play automatically compresses the textbooks and lets me download them for offline viewing on my phone. I can then access the textbook from any device with either the google play app or any computer through their website. The yellow (blue light removal) feature is also great for late night study sessions.
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6 years ago, Vidy1983
Speak screen app unresponsive
When I leverage the accessibility feature in iOS of “speak screen” the app reads the current page but then becomes unresponsive at the end of the page. The only way to revive the App is by killing it first and then restarting it. This needs to work like other e-book applications like Kindle and iBooks work to speak screen should be able to turn pages and continue reading. Play books used to be my favorite app but no more.
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5 years ago, Blah,blah, blah!
Problems with this ap
I have written and written to Google Play Books about my issue, to no avail. Nobody answers my questions or addresses my issue, which is a MAJOR one!!! Often, in the books I buy, the words from one page to another do not correlate!! There are missing sentences, missing words!! I have to try to DECIPHER the meaning of pages that don’t have all the sentences on them that the author writes!! You make it impossible to contact you, and you don’t care to fix your issues!! Also, bought a sample, but the book won’t download. REFUND ME!!! Disgusted and fed up, having spent too much money on books I cannot read for you! Respond, or I will keep giving you awful reviews, which you deserve.
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1 year ago, cookookookookoo
SOME concerns and fixes
I was told you could sample books? No button or anything to give me a sample. You don’t know anything about the book. Also you have to go out of the app then to chrome or safari if your on a mobile device (like me) go to play website find the book then buy it! It’s absurd, overall once I got a book and figured it out the reading experience was ok, it kicked me out a few times. I still don’t know if it was connection or the app. Please fix these minor problems to make a better experience for future readers
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4 years ago, KatyMajor
The Bane of My Existence
Let me start by saying that this is easily the worst reading app I’ve ever used. I’m amazed at its inability to perform even basic functions. It doesn’t recognize my pressing and dragging to highlight, so anything I’m reading as research takes 2-3 times as long. It randomly freezes and crashes, and pages take long seconds to turn. I’ve rage quit countless times and feel like a total idiot for buying 3 Google Books having not tried the apps. This app has now become the bane of my existence. Reading has become a giant source of frustration. Please do not make this mistake and buy their books if you rely heavily on reading apps!!! I honestly never write reviews but this product is so bad I had to say something.
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7 years ago, b17j25
Saisfied customer
Update: Still very happy with this App, glad that it has been kept simple and easy to use. Maybe a filing system would be useful for some. All told very good and recommended. Previous comment Apart from lacking a good filing system I am very satisfied with this App. Does most things Kindle, Kobo & iBooks do, you just need to look for them, every reading App is different. Pricing of books is very competitive and should also be considered, PlayBooks is way out in front in this respect.
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3 years ago, CharlenaLykins
Love the app but…
I would have given the app 5 stars, however after the latest update I can’t change my font. The text is so small I can hardly ready it. Hope you can fix this soon because I really wanted to read the series I have from Lacey Weathersford. Please fix this quickly. Just in case you readers what know about the series the first book is Trouble with spells.
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5 years ago, MsAjayi
Wish there was more
I much prefer the Apple Books app. It has a section to put books that I want to read so I have an ongoing list. All of the available books & audio books to purchase are in that same app too. To use the google books app you have to go on google play (which is not an app) & go through movies & tv on there as well. The google books app would be much better if they at least had google play in an app instead of going on chrome & typing it in & ultimately if they just had the available books in the books app itself.
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1 year ago, ArsAstronautica
Useful and useless
The app is very nice for reading books from Google's scanned library of very old books. I use Google books for this sort of thing frequently and thus do not need to travel all over the world for access to library's that contain them. So positive points there. However, why no search feature for a given book? I have to use my BROWSER to log into Google Books to search for key words and phases as opposed to using this app. Apple Books, I might add, has this feature and it is immeasurably useful.
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7 years ago, kkrnorth
Worst app ever
I have never ever ever once been able to read a book i’ve downloaded to Google Play. I downloaded a few free ones (just to make sure it works before I pay for any e-books). The app just spends and spends and spends and never loads. I go back to the app days later there is an image of the book I click on it and it spins and spins and spins and never opens. Each time there’s an app update I update the app in hopes then I can read in the book in Google play but no I click on a book and it spins and spins and spins and spins and never opens. You would think it being Google, you could trust it would be a top notch product, but this app has taken Google down a few notches in my estimation. 😡
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3 years ago, PilotOlney
Google is usually great - but not here
This is one of those time you wish the justice department would enforce anti-trust laws. The first issue is, the book has no internal search feature. The second issue is that i kept getting an error that my book was open on another device - only i don’t have another device. It is conceivable that someone in the world hacked me and opened this very obscure book on Indian corporate governance - but unlikely. The worst part is the customer service. Or should i say the lack there of. And now the link doesn’t even work - at least they are honest. Let’s just hope their automated cars have better customer support.
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6 years ago, DeeJaySas
Background downloads hopefully includes Resume downloads
I was just about to give it one star, but then saw the latest update includes background downloads. I have ‘lost’ several nearly complete audio book downloads because of the lack of the app being able to resume downloads. This is highly annoying when you are on a slow and limited data connection. Download resuming is a basic function and should have been in the first version. Hope that background downloads includes this function, but it didn’t get a mention and I haven’t been able to try it yet.
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7 years ago, KatheeeB
Google update ruined this for apple users.
I love this app, but after the last update a couple days so, I can't read any book. It try's to load and just spins and spins and spins. I have deleted play books and re downloaded twice. Still won't work. Help! UPDATE: Called support, they told me to do everything I already did. Even though there all numerous complaints on here since PlayBooks last update...they say it is an Apple problem. Looks like they don't care to resolve the problem with Apple users. Anyone have a suggestion of a replacement app for apple users?
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4 years ago, shepj3
Annotation Features are limited and extremely buggy.
While highlighting text in a book on iOS app, I experience two symptoms repeatedly: when I attempt to highlight a sentence or 2, the highlight spontaneously highlighted the entire page when I didn’t want it to; and when I selected that (now) highlighted page to delete the highlight I didn’t want in the first place, the annotation controls do no appear so I can’t delete it. My only recourse is to keep rebooting the app and or my phone OS just to get this feature to work. After the most recent update for bug fixes, the ability to highlight/annotate has completely disappeared. Now, this app is essentially worthless.
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6 years ago, meowashlyn
This App is a Sick Joke
I don’t know what made my experience with this app so much different than everyone else’s, but I’m over it. I rented a textbook for school on this app, and I was excited that, if this worked out, I could start doing this for all my texts! No. I will never do this again. I’ll never put anyone I know through using this app. The table of contents and page numbers are totally messed up, and I often find myself flipping through the same pages over and over? In addition, I can’t get past page 32 using this app on my iPad. I wish I could get back the money I paid to rent this book on here, as well as the hours of my life I’ve spent sorting through this garbage.
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6 years ago, armughan47
Downloaded books get deleted after switching to another account.
Downloaded books get deleted after switching to another account. I have been using play books for years and personally it’s my favorite book reading aap . On previous versions of this aap the user could download books on different accounts and the books won’t get deleted after switching the accounts but this update deletes books after switching account . I will give 5 stars once this issue is fixed.
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5 years ago, Doomdaygirl13
Good but could be better
The app is fine, and while I do like it over the one I had before I still prefer this one over it. While I say that, I can't discount it's mistakes. The epubs that I mainly use Google play books for doesn't have a cover page to it, and I have to go by the names instead. There isn't any shelves to organize your stories by, at least not in the iPhone version which is something that the iBooks (apple's version) has over them, and I plead that they will change it in the near future. You also can't rename any of the epubs, another thing that iBooks let's you do.
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2 years ago, createme7682
Horrible on highlighting
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!
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6 years ago, lenax316
Download Issues unable to Contact Support easily
The app has been great for me up until the most recent update. For some reason I am only able to read the sample and it will no longer allow me to purchase the entire e-book. Instead I am getting an error stating “books already purchased are available to read in this app.” I have not purchased the e-book at this point, what is the meaning of this? I have tried reinstalling and using the troubleshooting info, however, nothing has worked and it is extremely difficult finding an alternate way to get support.
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