Google Play Books & Audiobooks Customer Service

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.

COLONEL WALTER CUNNINGHAM, USMCR (Ret.); Apollo 7 Lunar Module Pilot conveys all of the truths and emotions of what life as an astronaut was like during the early NASA Manned Space Program. “THE ALL AMERICAN BOYS” captures the inner spirit and tenacity of our early space pioneers thru this in-depth personal memoir! It examines the incredible risk that was exposed in many space flight missions; Project Mercury, Project Gemini, and ultimate success thru all of the Project Apollo space flights. The loss of fellow “Astros” during training hops in T-38’s and the untimely deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee during the Apollo 1 “plugs-out” test on the launch pad is vividly discussed and examined as horrible tragedies. Both hard copy book and audiobook (narrated by Colonel Cunningham himself) is extremely in-captivating and very well presented. Both formats are a tribute to the lives, sacrifices, and determination of a special group of men selected by NASA to achieve one of the greatest scientific human achievements of all time; to place a man on the surface of the moon and return him safely to the Earth before the end of the decade. The challenge spoken by President John F. Kennedy in the early 1960’s was met and ultimately task accomplished on July 20, 1969 with the success of the Apollo 11 First Lunar Landing. Colonel Cunningham’s story is told with a no-holds barred approach and written with sincere conviction. A must read for all ages and a documented account of great men putting risk aside and getting the job done by doing whatever it takes to achieve success in their missions. Thank you Colonel Cunningham for everything you have done to ensure the tremendous successes of the American Manned Space Program and your commitment to a grateful Nation! God Bless and Godspeed always! SEMPER FIDELIS!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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!!!!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

I’ve enjoyed the finest works in some of the choicest prints in all of recorded history and it’s thanks to Google books. I could cry for how poorly my iPhone 15 pro handles the app but I genuinely consider the older prints on this app the finest free resources on the planet (from fiction to philosophy to history to biography etc!). I just hope they continue to expand the free catalogue of public domain works from prior to the 20th century cause it’s beyond compare for enriching one’s life.

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.

I love the app but it always lags a lot as soon as I open it (but maybe that’s because I downloaded so many books with it). Anyways, it’s very helpful but if possible could there be more than 4 colours to use when highlighting?

Since the new iOS update, the split screen function no longer works. Please fix this.

Way better than the stock books app. The way it seamlessly syncs amongs devices and the functions are so good.

Works great!! :)

This book is very informative on the process of qualifying for a mortgage. Great real investment plan for Canadians without all the motivational hype. There is also a link to the author’s brokerage team I highly recommend it for all Canadian real estate investors.

I specifically downloaded Google playbooks on my Apple because on my android I was able to get the app to read my ebooks aloud to me. Come to find out, that on apple they don’t have that function. So it’s basically just as good as Apple Books and there’s really no difference between the 2.

Nice app especially the translate option that you can translate a paragraph in any language you want, however before it was like kindle app that the dictionary would pop up when you selected a word, now you have to click on the define button everytime you wanna see the meaning which with e-readers is tiring

Fun to read as for audio reading pictures many options

It can’t handle ToC with multiple levels, and doesn’t allow me to adjust the margins. Otherwise it would be great.

This is better than apple books. Would love to have a app for watch to use.

It is a little silly on iPad however, where in landscape mode it’ll flip two pages as if they are on the same piece of paper. Also unlike on iPhone, the home bar and the status at the top of the screen can’t be hidden, creating unnecessary distractions.

This is amazing omg the animation of the pages when turning on my iPad are amazing absolutely love

I’m going out

I like this app because it let’s me read for free but I have no Internet but I still like it and my favourite thing to read is dying of a pug.💞💘💝💓💕💗💖🥰😍😘

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

(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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 ???

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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. 😡

This is still not fixed as of Jan 17, 2025. It’s causing accessibility issues because the light level keeps getting turned up on its own. It hurts my eyes and makes it hard to switch settings back where I need them. Please fix! Previously: This app functions well for the most part, but the lighting settings and the screen color settings don’t stay where I selected in app. Every time the shift from night to day themes, my Play Books dark, low light settings shifts from what I selected. And there’s no way to make them stay exactly as selected. It also frequently switches back to light theme and a more lighted scale than I can tolerate if I’m using other apps before returning to my book. I expect more than this. It’s 2025. Apps should have such basic settings sorted and should hold their values without user monitoring. I’m on iPhone 15 Pro Max and running iOS 18.2.1

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Why take away the ability to buy books through the app? If I have to use my computer to buy books I won’t be using this one to read or buy a book when I can use amazon, the app or on a computer to buy books. Same reason I quit using iBooks except I can only use the app for that one now, not the computer.

Other than that Mrs Lincoln... When I go from one device it does not show my place on another device! Perhaps this is because I use Apple or perhaps because it's a preview but frankly that would not change my rating, Google has no excuse for that feature not working perfectly alll the time.

Doesn't work well on iphones, I can't get local books to sync into the app. It syncs though if I upload it the the books on my Samsung phone

The app has worked great until a couple weeks ago now when I open an ebook the app kind of blinks or flashes when I touch the screen. All my other apps work great and the app works great for my iPad the issue is on my iPhone only. I’ve also done all available updates for the app and phone as well

I don’t even have the game and the reviews look bad from the sound of it

Why remove the ability to delete books and replace it with this ridiculous "hide" option? So I'm hiding it from my devices, but.., it's still there? So what is the point of hiding it? Why not just delete it? Where did it go?

You need to hold, highlight, and press translate. On Kindle, you just need to long-press, and it will translate automatically

This app is very dysfunctional. It cannot remember where you left, you cannot read the text in portrait position because the letters are very very small and there is no way to change the font size! The only way to read anything is to turn your device landscape, but be very careful to not turn it portrait again by mistake because then you will be scrolled way up, and you’ll struggle to scroll down to the page you were on.

It has not worked for the past few months

I accidentally bought a book of older editions, and Google refuse to give me the refund, even though I immediately purchased the newest edition. They should give customers legitimate refund or remove the confusing and redundant products.

Books immediately pause when you lock your phone screen or exit the app. Why? It makes zero sense when other apps don’t have that issue. Who wants to have to leave their audiobook app screen running constantly?

I’ve noticed on this app some pages don’t load. Certain pages in the books I PAID FOR, mind you, will not load until I’ve restarted the app, and then restarted my device several times. And to add to that since I recieved a response: it is up to date. That’s the first thing I check. It’s simply a problem with your app.

Refus de remboursement malgré qu’il y ait un problème de fonctionnement de leur part

I’ve purchased new books yesterday and they loaded to my library. When I went to start reading in the evening not only the new books but everything in my library is gone an I didn’t change account. Very frustrated!

Fun fact, any books you buy through the google play bookstore can potentially disappear randomly and the chat help/ support is useless. If you depend on this app to study and or get your work done DON’T. I have hundreds of dollars worth of books I cannot access and all of my studying and work is on hold until ??? who knows when, considering the support staff didn’t know either. Wasted hours of my time trying to troubleshoot for nothing.

The purchases/uploads filter just won’t work while it works on the web version.

On ipad, I find the app not so user friendly for adding reading notes and navigate through them despite of having those option. However, it’s fine for stocking ebooks from different sources.

I had an issue I need help from customer support and the rep hyacinth was horrible. He told me to ask for help in again in 90 days and is asking me to wait 90 days to submit my request again which is a long time. Do they not realize 90 days is a long time for a customer to wait?

Every time I’m reading a book after about 2 or 3 chapters I can’t get into any following chapters I’m always faced with a white blank.

The bookmark functionality is broken. When you create a bookmark, it goes to a random page.

From an iPhone 13 purchased a month ago, the app is frozen

When I come back from another app, first page of the book is opened. Happens every time. Very annoying.

Since the books can be purchased only in the currency of the country where the email is registered, I lost my money in failed transactions which were deducted from my account but never acknowledged by google. Contacting the play store did not help either.

Partial payments are not allowed so I will have this $8.50 in google play gift card for the rest of my life, since I cannot purchase anything at that exact amount. Reading series like manga or graphic novels is an awful experience, since the series don’t stay together. The app acts like a bookstore, where everything is individual, so that would make sense, if you could purchase products from the app itself. So if this is simply a reading app now, instead of a marketplace, why is it so difficult to view products together? You can place items on a shelf but you can’t make them go in chronological order all the time. My Skip Beat shelf goes 1 2 3 11 10 16. It would be so nice for a reading app to move seamlessly into the next book in a series, and be smart enough to know it’s in your library. I know apps don’t have that yet, so it’s not strictly a Google Play problem, but it would be nice. Now it just says « you’ve reached the end of the book. There are more on the Google Play website ». No link, so go do it yourself! Every time, for all 45 volumes I have in my library. You can’t even tap on the name of the author so search them directly. Maybe even a playlist function would work. Like Peloton does now. There must be some really strict rights agreements that make it so you can’t purchase books from any reading app anymore…

Why does this app jitter and flash every time I tap the screen? I guess because Google doesn’t support iOS very well. I wish I could do a full text search of all my cookbooks with this app. Strange that Google, the king of search doesn’t allow searching multiple books at once. Note that is possible in Google Books via the browser. I wish I could adjust the margin size.

First off I’ll say that I’ve only used this app for comics, so if you want to read books this review isn’t for you. As a comic reader it is serviceable but not great. The biggest issue is a complete lack of a zoom function. On my 12.9” iPad that isn’t a dealbreaker, but on something smaller that would be a pain. They try and make up for it by having a feature that makes the bubbles of text pop big in the order you should read them, which makes the small text easier to read. This works ok, but I found that too often it covered art I wanted to see, and toggling back and forth never felt super comfortable. It’s a neat option, but it does a poor job of replacing pinch zoom. Really, if you want to read comics, you’re better off using Apple Books, Madefire, or ComiXology. This is only worth using if you get a good price or the comic isn’t available elsewhere.

I looked up wof then I got into the ebook but it wouldn’t let me read!!

I used this app for many years and never had a serious issues. But for the last couple weeks it started to crash during load. Sometimes you need to start app few times until you will able to open the book. Also, when it crashes during the reader it doesn’t allow to open same book again pretending that this book already open on your a other device. Fix it or i will have to switch my favourite reading app to kindle or ibook

The complaints about this app have not changed. Dinosaur, buggy, constantly freezes, not customizable even in humblest most technologically insignificant ways. They ask for feedback. I’ll wager the feedback hasn’t changed in a decade, because people keep reporting/asking for the same things that are never improved. I use this only when there is no other option for an ebook, and without fail, it is an unpleasant experience every time. Why don’t they fix this monstrosity?

The book I purchased was formatted to look like a novel, but it was just a reader’s guide, and Google was unwilling to refund or exchange the item for me. It was foolish for me to stop using Amazon, I just liked the way Google formatted its pages. But if you read covers very carefully, this won’t happen to you.

Play books is DRM enabled. I have a major concern. At the rate at which many of the Google services are shuttering how would we have offline access to the books that we have purchased. Even if we have access to a copy we would not be able to read it on another software or device unless the DRM protection is lifted from our copy. This becomes a major hassle for those of us who would like to future proof our purchased copy so that we can read them in the future as well, in any case that the company shuts down. Please respond to urgent concern. Thanks.

I purchased a text book for this app and every time I highlight a sentence or a paragraph it automatically jumps to a different sentence that i did not highlight. Same with the page turning it skips pages It’s very frustrating! Pls fix this!

Never had an app so frustrating and awful to work with

Sometimes i turn the page and it’s just black!!

I use google playbook on my iPhone 11 Pro max. I bought the NIV devotional men's bible a while ago. The app on this phone will not let me highlight bible verses or make note on specific pages. It is very frustrating and disappointing. Can you guys fix this ? It was working perfectly on my previous iPhone 8 Plus until I swapped phones in October.

The bugs in this app are insane. Come on Google please give us a good app. You can do better: Pages are slow to flip Books take forever to open Highlighting is a nerve racking experience Forget about taking notes I am using an iPad Pro.