BookReader App Reviews

I have been using this app for reading epubs on my Mac. It works very well as a reader. It is not a complete solution for study. It does not offer annotation, highlight, underline features, etc. I dont use it for DRM media. It is understandable that protected media would not work on this application. But for open epubs on my Mac this has been very good.

The thing that all these negative reviews want is a thing that no company can implement without Apples full support - you simply cant read DRM-protected ebooks on any non-Apple book reader app. That said, this is as close as it can get to having a full-fledged iBooks on my Mac. I very much wish that Apple would offer to acquire this app so that it can fill a sorely needed role.

Dont waste your money the only thing i was able to read with this app was the users manual. This app was not cheap and is useless. Get the kindle app its free and works great. Apple really dropped the ball here.

Long time user with no regrets. Yeah, I know that it wont work with protected books, but there are plenty of free books out there (many in the iTunes library) that are unprotected and that is what I bought this product for. It is well structured and (for my purposes) fully functional. It is reliable and easy to use. I have yet to spend one dime on a book from iTunes, I only take those offered for free. If Apple wants my money, Apple can lift the protection or make a fix available to the author of this app.

I was looking for a well-designed, easy to use app to read ebooks on my Mac (mostly ePubs). This one works great, and looks good too (which is always a plus in my book). I love Calibre for organizing and converting ebooks, but its hideously ugly, while this one looks and feels like a polished Mac app.

The application doesnt open the books properly. The books are unreadable. you are just stole my money.

In BookReader Ive found a simple and straight forward eBook reader Ive been looking years for that compliments my mobile solutions. This lets you store and sort your books with a simple interface and gives you a well crafted layout to read your books without distraction in fullscreen. The creators are also quick to respond to feedback and from what Ive seen on his forums, quick to implement improvements that dont clutter things up. I cant wait to see what they do moving forward and Im happy to finally have a native reader that is clean and clear. Note: As the creators say, it does NOT read DRMd purchases. This is for people who plan to buy or have been buying from publishers who sell their books without DRM.

This has been an avenue that Apple have not helped it customers. I personally love reading on my mac when I have to do research and find things quickly and it is a real shame that Apple have not added the ibookstore to the mac. Book Reader I have used from the very beginning and I am very impressed by its look and feel and ease of use. I have tried all the readers avaliable on the mac and have always come back to book reader. It has a lovely quality and reading experience and very easy to search and make notes on any particular book. Many complaints have been that you can not read DRM books. It is important to know that this is Apples restriction and other publishers who use DRM. I personally find the DRM sickening as it tends to treat genuine buyers as criminals. There are a lot of book publishers out there who have thrown the whole DRM out the window and the customers response well to it because of the no hassle reading on any device and the ability to share the books you care about with friends and family without feeling like you are being bad for sharing something you own. Sitepoint books are a good example of book publishers who follow this no DRM approach. As far a book reader goes, it has a few small bugs which I have written to the developer about who responded within half an hour to help address them. It is clear from the tone of the email I recieved how much this project is a passion for them and how much care is taken with its development which is refreshing and nice to see. The other feature that is fantastic is the text to speech option which I use a lot. The mac os built in voices are not the best but there are other voices that are better to have books read out loud to you. This app is my favourite book reader for it simplicity, elegance and readability. I continue to recommend this to everyone who reads epubs without DRM hassles. I am looking forward to future development of this reader and very excited to see where they will take it.

I have been looking for a good eBook reading app on Mac that had the functionality and aesthetics of the Kindle app, the management power of Calibre, and the Appleish feel for browsing my library, which is ever-growing. This app nails the aesthetics part, except that some of the highlighting colors look really weird, especially yellow, the primary color I would use, which honestly looks like the color of bile. I do like the cover browsing ability and metadata editing that is the iTunes to my ebooks, and the tags are a nice feature as well. This app doesnt have near the management power of Calibre, but I can forgive that because it doesnt advertise itself as being such. Where this app REALLY falls short is the search function, which is really spotty. For example, I have John Lockes Second Treatise on Government. If I search from the main window for John, it doesnt show up. If I search for Locke, still nothing. If I search for "Second" it STILL doesnt show up. This is really bad, and I dont want to have to scroll through 100+ books to find the title I want. It would also be REALLY nice to be able to search the contents of all of the books in my library. For being a paid app, Id expect a bit more. At this point, I might as well go back to the free Kindle app - this doesnt offer much that you cant find there except for epub compatibility.

Exactly what I was looking for… given all of the constraints of the digital book ecosystem, this app is the best that one can hope for at this time. Elegant interface, simple to use, customizable, notes/ highlights mgmt, etc. One of these days well be able to integrate across devices, but until then this is the answer to reading your drm-free books. Thank you for your work Leo!

I own numerous ebooks in the epub format without DRM restrictions; BookReader is the reader of choice for these files on the Mac. It is elegant, simple, efficient, aesthetically pleasing. This is the kind of app one wants to see.

This is an excellent application for reading e-books. I currently have two e-book reader applications, and this is the best, by far. Further, the developers support is excellent. I encountered a transient problem with a particular e-Book (epub), and contacted the developer. He quickly responded with a fix (the next day). I enthusiastically encourage anyone shopping for an e-Book reader to purchase this application. The app is great, and the support is great.

Love this app. I wish there was a version for iPad. I am visually impaired and I use the app to read to me when my eyes are tired. The read option is very simple, click on the speaker icon and it reads the page; no having to select the text. I love it. Hope there is an iPad version.

Thanks for making an app that iBooks refuses to do. I would rather read my books on my Mac Book than my iPhone. Thanks

Failed to meet my needs

This just doesnt work… The books I bought in iTunes that are on my iPad and iPhone are not on my MAC…. Frustrating and Annoying… seems like it should be simple…..

It is simple and works well on my Mac Pro.

This is a great app. The best in this category. The only thing that would make it better, perfect. Would be an iOS app that synced pages and bookmarks with it.

I got this app and I was so happy thinking it was going to work, right. I had taken my time to read the reviews and such… Well, I bought it and I open this good for nothing app. and all is see is a bunch of symbols instead of letters… ALL my books have symbols instead symbols instead of letters not one is readable. This app is not good. DO NOT buy it… Its worthless! I gave it one star because it wouldnt let me write a review otherwise.

Its worked well with many EPUB files, but some Google Play (no DRM) EPUB files have character set problems with BookReader. Some characters dont render correctly. Manually changing character set assignment didnt help.