Apple Books ١٢+

Frustration with iOS 16 disfunction leaves me wondering if the upgrade was tested before being released. I agree with the previous reviewer and won’t re-address those same concerns. However, I will address the book mark and scroll reading issues. The slightest touch while scroll reading activates the red book mark which (because I’m reading) needs to be cleared. Sometimes touching the red bookmark is enough to clear it, but other times you have to open the Themes and Settings menu and remove the bookmark there as well. This seems to be more sensitive with iOS 16 than previous versions.

Even more frustrating, though; when using the scroll reading feature near the end of a chapter the (scroll) screen jumps ahead - sometimes paragraphs ahead, sometimes pages ahead, sometimes to the end of the current chapter, or other times to the end of the book. Imagine trying to find where you were reading last when that happens. (An opportunity to use the search feature as long as you have the exact verbiage.)

Anyway, to fix the jumping scroll issue I change from scroll to page turning or sometimes I have decreased the font size, and then sometimes I have to close the book because it won’t reload after a font size change. And since the pages are renumbered you can’t just go to your last page and continue reading. Please FIX this bug in the near future. Thank you.

The most recent update has made this perhaps the most frustrating experience I've had yet while trying to read and annotate. The previous format made it easy to highlight, scroll between pages, add notes, clear highlight marks, find the index (a crazy concept now), and overall be able to hold my device while using the app.

This recent update has made it feel more like I'm scrolling through my camera roll of screenshots that someone took of book pages than it actually feels like I'm attempting to read a formatted book. The highlighting feature is almost twice as twitchy and jumpy as before, and I find it even harder to remove highlighting that was done by mistake. Not only that, but instead of being able to tap a drop-down menu for the book's index, you now need to tap the screen three or four times before it registers that you don't want to just be in image mode, and that you'd actually like to access another menu. This menu, which was formerly easy to use and access, has been relegated to a very tiny and hard-to-find button in the bottom corner that doesn't always show up. In addition to that frustration, it's much harder to operate than the last menu.

My best description of the new update is that they tried to fix something that wasn't really broken, and in doing so just made it worse.

I enjoy reading books with this app, but there are still a lot of glitches from my last review. 1: light reading books that come in volumes are still not stacking up for some reason. The author’s name hasn’t changed for the series, so the is no reason it can’t consolidate them to one group rather than have each book separated. 2: sometimes when the page, it goes to a blank page. I have to swipe a previous page or two and then go back to the said page. Lastly: both my iPhone 12 and iPad Air app crashes sometimes. Not too sure why this hasn’t been addressed, but it’s been years since the app came out. The more software continues to advance, it should reduce the problems, not create more. Would like to see my money’s worth purchasing books from this app be put to use on updating the app (REAL updates). It would be much appreciated. But I believe my words are being unheard. Some books I pre-ordered are not showing up. When I hit “View Item” it says that the said book is no longer available in this country or region. Mind the fact, that I waited over a month for the book and now I can’t read it. Not too sure if it’s due to technical issues or incompetent functions. All I know is that this app is getting worse and no one is fixing it. My advice to those looking at this app, keep what you got and find another iBook app. This was once at the top of it’s peak and now it’s falling fast.