Bookshop.org Ebooks 12+

Nice Start!

I’m so excited to be able to switch to Bookshop and support local bookstores! I attempted to read a book on here and I have a couple issues. I don’t understand why vertical scroll only works when my iPad is upright vertically. When I read on my iPad, I read with it flipped horizontally since most iPad cases have a stand to hold them up horizontally. It would be easier for couch and bed reading if there was vertical scroll no matter what way the iPad is turned. I’m a big fan of continuous scroll horizontally and hate having to “turn the page”. Another thing I’d love to see is more fonts, as I’ve seen a few others mention. It would also be interesting to see if there was a way to change font color. I enjoy reading in dark mode, but have noticed some other apps opt for a light gray for font color because stark white on the black background can be harsh on the eyes. Overall, I’m glad that there seems to be regular updates to concerns that others have mentioned. I know this is a new app, so I’m excited to see what improvements will be made in the future!

Developer Response ,

Thank you for your feedback! I'm sorry for the issue with the vertical scroll - we have a fix coming in our next release to resolve the issue you're experiencing so you can use vertical scroll in horizontal/landscape mode. We also are planning to launch several more font options and give more flexibility to readers with font and background choices, so stay tuned for those enhancements, and happy reading!

Great alternative to the mainstream app

I love having an alternative to the mainstream app and have shared it with many friends and encouraged all to support. Suggestions for improvement: 1) allow for orientation lock for those of us who read in bed, especially as it seems to wildly lose my place if it switches from horizontal to vertical. 2) improve the ability to find last place read to either when switching between devices or when you accidentally tap the screen causing it to jump to some kind of crazy place. My work around has been to highlight a few words periodically and whenever I leave off so I can find my place again if it jumps to some mystery spot. I later go back and delete superfluous highlights. 3) partner with library systems so they can buy from you also and I can use your app for library ebooks. 4) find a way for readers to share a purchased book with a short list of friends like we used to do in the good old days with “real” books. This is the one huge downside to digital media and makes me reluctant to pay full price for books if I’m the only one who gets to read them. Best wishes for continued expansion and success!

Love the app, needs a few improvements and accessibility features.

Love this alternative to mainstream apps!!! A few tweaks I would love to see:

The app needs screen orientation lock option (or iOS automation option) for people who like or need to read laying down or reclining without locking screen rotation for all apps. It’s frustrating to keep juggling backs d forth, particularly because when the screen rotates to landscape and then back again, you lose your place.

The other feature needed is bookmarks. Opening the app, it is hit or miss if the app remembers your location in the book. Similarly, the app seems to “forget” settings like fonts and background colors. App updates should retain all such settings.

Finally, I would love to see more options for text format, other reader apps have options for dyslexic readers, like contrast and special fonts.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for helping us support independent bookstores, and for your feedback on ways we can improve! We agree that we have more work to do for the app to provide a truly smooth reading experience, and we are actively working to address the issues you reported as well as enhance the feature set to include orientation lock, add a dyslexic font and more font options.

The good news is we do have bookmark functionality, which you can access with the "pill" menu that renders when you click on the middle of the page of a book. If you have additional feedback to help us continue to improve the reading experience, we'd welcome your thoughts at product@bookshop.org.