hoopla Digital 12+

Must have!

I am OBSESSED. I am a public library director so the I have helped the library make this possible for our community. If your library doesn’t offer it, ask!
Unlike other providers of digital content, though also amazing in their own right, Hoopla offers ebooks, audio books, comics, tv, music, and movies. All items in their catalog are instantly available- no wait! How many check outs a month is set by your library as its free to the user and paid for by the library but its a great compliment to other digital platforms! The app’s interface is easy to use and they are constantly improving it. You can download ebooks and audio books to your device for the 21 day check out so you can listen even when you cannot stream. If the item “falls off” after your checkout (because 50 hour audio books are a thing), you can re-borrow and it picks back up where you left off! You don’t have to start over. There are even more benefits I haven’t mentioned!
And from the backend as a director, working with the staff at MidWest Tape is awesome; quick to answer questions & reach out for support. It’s easy to access your portal and check stats, make changes to checkout limits and controls, and review spending.
I can’t say enough nor can my patrons!! We love it! CHECK IT OUT!

Saves Me Lots of Moola!

This may be my first app review, but I wanted to tell you how thankful I am for Hoopla. There is plenty of content of interest and I’ve even seen some really recent books on here. I’ve stopped using Audible since discovering it (when someone mentioned it in a review of the Libby app, which I also use, but Libby can have long waits and has shorter borrow times). I do wish we could read the ebooks in Kindle form because that’s better for eyes than a typical tablet screen and my Kindle has much better battery life than my ipad. It’s great how we can highlight within the ebooks, but I don’t think there’s a way to save those highlights or add notes like on Kindle. As I don’t really like reading whole books on the iPad, I usually stick to audiobooks here, but am very grateful for them.

Occasionally, Hoopla doesn’t succeed in accurately syncing my place between devices (phone and iPad), so that’s something they might want to take a look at. I also appreciate that you can toggle in and out of Kids mode, but would prefer a password to enter back into adult mode, for when my kids use it on their own. It is tricky to constantly supervise all content kids select and I’m not comfortable with all the options in the Kids section either. Perhaps a parent could enter a password to approve each borrow before a child can borrow while in Kids mode.

Thank you for a great free app though. I’m happy to be a member of a library that participates with it.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for using hoopla! We understand you are frustrated with the monthly borrow limits. Although hoopla delivers the content, your library determines and implements borrow limits. You can contact them directly to ask about the policy. If you have other questions about hoopla, please email us at feedback@hoopladigital.com! We’d love to be worthy of five stars!

Problems

Originally I liked the Hoopla app. Now not so much. It seems to be having what I consider insurmountable annoyances. It first started with the app freezing right in the middle of a book. I switched from using the app to read a book to just clicking on read now without using the app. That worked for a while but is now doing the same thing. Very frustrating when you have only so much time to read and then it freezes and you can’t. It isn’t my device at fault either since it happens not only on both tablets I use but also on my phone.
I’ve written to them twice with no response about this problem. I was sure they would fix it but no such luck.
Also it doesn’t sync between devices. The other library apps like Overdrive will pick up whatever page you’re on when you change devices. Not Hoopla. I’m sorry to say. This means endless scrolling page by page in order to get to your current page.
Oh and the latest annoyance is after reading maybe 10 pages a banner pops up and you have to click out of the book, it comes up with the download page and you then have to click on resume in order to keep reading. It’s almost enough to quit using this app. The only reason I come back to it occasionally is they have some books that the other services do not..if you want to try an app that works the way it should try Libby. They’ve got their act together.
Merry Christmas one and all. Hope the powers that be read this and fix these basic problems.