NYPL SimplyE

Seriously awful app. On rare occasions it might remember where I left off but mostly it seems to pick one spot of an audiobook and always revert to that spot. Sometimes even by the mere disturbance of turning my phone sideways. I also particularly like that it randomly pauses if I'm moving around too much, like in my pocket at the gym. I hope some of these things improve with time.

This is a disappointing app. I have two libraries that I borrow books from and the app is constantly removing the one. I have to add it over and over again so if I'm reading a book I have to try and download it again and page though to find where I left off . Sometimes it won't let me download like right now. I just started a book I've been writing weeks to read it was removed and even though it's still on loan to me it won't download so I can read it. Getting tired of fighting with it. No chang

this app is actual garbage. the entire thing refuses to load even with great sevrice or when on wifi. they need to add a way to download books so each chapter or section doesn't have to load every single time someone opens the app and selects a book to read. also, finding a book is such a hassle. the idea of ebooks/audiobooks being available through your local library is nice, but the execution needs a lot of work to make it much more user-friendly

Really? NY Public Library has only 46 non-fiction books?? My search for books on Psychology returned a mere 10 books - 4 after eliminating duplicate entries. Categories are incredibly limited. App needs major work to be of any use. Uninstalling.

It's absolutely impossible to find anything with this app. I'm beginning to think that they don't really exist to serve the readers at the NYPL when we look for books for the NPR book club. This is a shameful embarrassment for anyone looking for a book.

Audiobooks will only play for 30 minutes or so at a time before crashing and the app never remembers where you left off.

App pauses audiobook within 10 seconds of phone locking instead of playing in background. Makes the entire NYPL collection useless.

I wonder why the New York library would choose to use such a poor app. Book will not load even though i have good service coverage. Also, it will not dim so i dont disturb my wife while i read at night.

Simplye was working fine before the last update. Whatever they supposedly fixed only caused more problems. The swipe to go one page can skip whole chapters. Lose my place in book now i bookmark every page. Blue dot does not disappear whwn i reading book. Need to make better not worse!!!!!

I keep requesting a book and it keeps being delayed. I was supposed to have one available to me tomorrow. Now it's telling me 23 more days. And this is not the first time. Very annoying.

I am disappointed with this app. I wished that the audio would give continuous playback, instead I have to figure out where I left off, sometimes it just stops. I really want to enjoy this app but as of now I am not.

Alas, even worse after update. Similar experiences to other posters here. Constantly have to re-log on, re-get my books and once, the book was no longer available and I was halfway through it. When it works (rare), it's great; when it doesn't, it's horrible. I don't want reading to become so stressful and such a chore. Love supporting the Library, but this App needs a lot of fixing. Plus, after the update, the visual is pretty terrible. Thank you

I'm glad this app exists conceptually, but it is without a doubt the worst app I've ever used. You're much better off thinking of it as a curious random collection of bugs than an app. It did let me read a few chapters on occasion, but only after hunting to find the one tiny (and variable) spot on the screen that registered as a page turn. And if you change the brightness, forget about it remembering what page you were on. So so terribly bad in every way. Why??

Unfortunately buggy. It seems other people have described the same : inconsistent, pages may or might not turn, book might not load at all, blank pages, frozen completely... And on and on. I hadn't used the app in the past, so I don't know if this is an issue related to an increase in number of users now that the actual library is closed due to the pandemic... But it is still disappointing and frustrating. Because the books one is supposedly borrowing, are not really available to read.

Resets the screen brightness to 100% every single time you leave a book or the app. Moves to the 1st page of a chapter when you switch to a different app but doesn't let you scroll; you have to go into the table of contents, find the chapter you're reading, and then scroll ahead to where you were. And it doesn't tell you how many pages are in the book. About a decade ago, i bought a remaindered no name tablet. It had a very basic/bad book reader program. It was head and shoulders above this.

Not terrible but not a lot of functional options. Should have a acroll option and the app takes control of screen brightness for the phone. Nice range of text sizes and color options. Tends to drop your book if you're away too long, and you have to re- checkout. Also goes to sleep if your not touching the screen constantly with no option to keep open until you close it.

Narration stops every 3-10 minutes when playing audiobooks. (not because of any of my settings) When I touch the play arrow to restart the narration,it begins playing at the same point every time, no matter how far along I am in the book. My most recent book won't play at all. I've used several different audiobook apps and this is by far the worst.

This is the worst app associated with a library I've ever used. When listening to an audiobook, the app will never remember the last place I stopped listening, so I have to remember what exact timestamp I last heard. When I try to open the app, it crashes or "times out" about 50% of the time. There is no banner with a pause option, when I navigate away from the app on my phone. I cannot believe New York Public Library uses SimplyE as their main ebook and audiobook portal.

The app definitely needs a few fixes: constantly asks you to reselect your library, re-enter your library card info, and redownload the books you have, it always has brightness of the max, sometimes audiobooks keep playing when the phone is locked and sometimes it doesn't, and when reading a book, the app doesn't override display settings and so the screen turns off often without touch. However, even with these bugs/annoyances, this app is an incredible resource and I greatly appreciate it.

App needs significant work. Book reservation doesn't alert you when you're able to rent the book. Page flipping does not always work. When you are done with a book and try to return it, it processes it, then says operation could not be completed so you have to wait for your rental time to be up and app automatically removes it - which I can see having a negative affect on the reservations. Recommendations are just books written by the same author, not anything with similar genre or subject. I only gave it a 2nd star because it has books and there are essentially no other options.

The worst app ever made. This app makes you log in from scatch EVERY time it is booted. It has no way of remembering where you left off in your audio books. It crashes regularly after 15 or 20 minutes of listening, and if you didn't know (on your own) EXACTLY where you left off, good luck trying to figure it out quickly and without ruining spoilers for yourself. This is not even worth 1 star. You're far better off just downloading individual Libby/Overdrive and Axis360 apps.

Almost impossible to use. When you open a book, pages may or may not appear; when you turn a page, sometimes it turns and sometimes it locks up, and sometimes it gets out of alignment, with the left side of the page cut off on the left and the left side of the following page visible on the right. Takes all the pleasure out of reading a book. I would expect higher quality from the NYPL. This app has been around for a while; does no one check it for bugs and fix them?!

Impossible to search! For example, I tried to search for the book, "Delivered from Distraction" and the results were all for books that started with "deliver." I tried putting the phrase in quotation marks and I tried searching for the author instead. Still the results were just the many, many books starting with "Deliver." There is no advanced search feature or any way I could find to search effectively for a book using this app. Was the search feature never tested by anyone?

it used to work really well. Not sure what happened but no longer downloads anything. contacted support and the instructed to re-install. still does not work. Update: seems the app was updated, so now if a book isn't on hold I can get it, but whenever I open it, everything is blank. If a I try to reserve a book, I just get an error message. Really disappointed.

An ebook reader app allowing library access should be simple. But this app works sporadically. It regularly loses my place in the book when reading, the page-turn functionality sometimes works, sometimes you have to do it multiple times to get the page to turn. Also, sometimes the text of a book in have will not show up at all - just a blank page. Frustrating to read this way.

Having similar problems to others here. I had been using this app for years, it was never completely smooth - but I read and enjoyed many many books (with some patience) using my NYPL card. But now I cannot return books that have been stuck in My Books & new downloads are blank. It's very sad. Please fix! It was such an incredible (if limited) resource in the past.

This app is such an important resource, so it's even more disappointing just how bad it is. Constant crashes, surprise logouts and 'we found a problem's messages, audiobooks don't remember where you left off, and more often than not refuse to play from anywhere but the very beginning each time. This is worse than having no app at all - these are all very doable fixes in 2021, please just make them.

Every time I finish one book, I have to close the app before it will open another one. It doesn't retain brightness information, so I'm constantly having to adjust every time I reopen the app, but I have to make sure I do it at the beginning of a chapter, otherwise it starts turning pages. Bookmarks seem to do nothing. And if the screen gets rotated, it loses where I am in the book as well as brightness settings. Terrible app, but I couldn't support my reading habit otherwise.