RedShelf Hack 1.14.0 + Redeem Codes

That’s the positive side. Compared to other apps that I use for buying my books, such as Pearson/Revel, it performs poorly.

It would be nice if it did a better job of syncing where I left off in the app to when I access itthrough the website. Also, the robotic voice is off-putting. One thing I love about the Revel app is that it has real humans reading the chapters back to you. Since I use the app on my hours commute to school/work I’ll press play & listen to the robot. They could do a simple improvement of letting you adjust the rate of speed at which the robot reads back to you. Instead, I have to listen at their slow robotic pace.

Also, if you add that adjustment, maybe you could consider letting me pick where I want the robot to stop/start reading. Revel forces you to have to listen to them from the beginning of the chapter, and although a humans voice sounds much better than a robot, it’s not the most productive.

If I could use any other app I would. DRM means one text book I am required to use in locked into this terrible app indefinitely. The issues are compounded by the choice of the publisher to release a PDF ebook instead of any proper ebook format. As such, the rendering of the pages is static - no font or color or contrast options.

That’s the point where the deficiencies of this app become apparent. One star for RedShelf being consistent: the web browser access is just as bad as the mobile app and performs identically. Pages are slow to load and flash loading graphics at every single page turn. Despite pinch-zoom being a feature on nearly every multi-touch surface, RedShelf requires clicking single buttons for zoom in or out. The rest of the DRM friendly features (limits on copy or print) make accessing information even more challenging if the text layout is locked into a US letter shaped page - which has no scale that fits a whole page fully legible on screen.

Free ebook readers have more features than RedShelf. Other textbook distributors have apps that while just as restrictive, at least load the pages smoothly and instantly. Maybe I got the fringe case of the worst optimized book in their catalog, but that indicates a commitment to capitalism not education. Quality is judged by sampling and my sample was a complete dud.

I was introduced to RedShelf when I started my adult journey to attaining a bachelors degree. I enjoy the site for the most part, there are a few items that could be improved in my opinion. One, the search engine can be a bit frustrating at times with how it displays search results. I’d like to see a page number and chapter number that is easier to quickly identify. The selection tool for copying and highlighting is a bit touchy when trying to select sections of text and a bit aggressive. Lastly, I’d like to see the bookmarks improved, now I don’t have any good ideas off-hand, I just know I use them and find them to be less useful when coming back to an area.

I had the misfortune of buying my textbooks before realizing that they are only available via this app. The app is barely usable if you read in a linear fashion. The navigation is non-intuitive. Sideway swipes go to the beginning of prior/next chapter, and scrolling up and down is the way to read the book. I keep accidentally side swiping to the next chapter, and then I can’t go back to the exact place I accidentally swiped from. So inconvenient. But even overlooking this design flaw, the app is just glitchy. Sometimes half the page is simply white, sometimes there is no response to swiping at all. I tried to bookmark a page and clicking the bookmark button did nothing at all but a day later suddenly that spot had 20 bookmarks. Sometimes the whole app freezes and I have no choice but to close it and restart from the beginning.
Bottom line, you can limp along with this app for any text you read linearly. If you buy any sort of reference manual where you have to find items or switch sections frequently, the app is simply unusable because of the long load time, freezing and constant glitches.

This app is sub par at best. When using a small mobile device like an iPhone, the app maintains the textbook appearance. This causes many problems. I recognize an iPhone is not an ideal platform. However, I have used other readers that are better. The only reason I am using this is because it is for a school textbook. Frequently, the textbook wants to “snap” to a position that is not where the reader needs to be. The navigation buttons are large and obscure the page information. Moreover, the highlight/annotations function is not ideal. The app too quickly “thinks” the user want to highlight. Because of the “snap back” the user often ends up highlighting irrelevant information Lastly, if one wants to use the read aloud function, the read order is often out of sequence. It reads everything, including the page numbers and chapter titles at the bottom of the page, as well as copyright information below the photos. For mobile devices, the developers ought to incorporate a simple text view option that could include photo/graphic thumbnails that the user can tap to expand.
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Sure, I can rent my books at a fairly reasonable price, but I will not be renting any more books through RedShelf again. I rented two books. If I always have an Internet connection, I don’t really have a problem. However, if I lose Internet connection for any reason I am not able to view my books. One of my books I cannot download to my tablet or my iPhone. My other book I’m only allowed to download to one device. However, with the new update my app crashed and I had to reload the app. Then I attempted to re-download the book. My account shows it is still downloaded to my tablet, which it is not because it crashed, so now I can’t download my book to my one tablet.
I ended up finding a digital copy elsewhere or I found an older paper edition on eBay.
Red shelf, you already make me use your app to view these books. Fine, but top restricting how I use the book in your app. Let me download it to as many devices as I feel like, to view it when ever I feel like (internet available or not). When my time is up, then just delete the book from my account. I don’t know why you have to make it so complicated.

I purchase all of my books as ebooks because I need the text to speech feature, and this is my first time where I have been forced to use RedShelf. Unfortunately, this feature on RedShelf is not functioning. I have tried to get help online but when you try to get to the solve ticket online, you are directed to the exact same place you started. It is impossible to find help or talk to support. I have followed all of the trouble shooting steps I have found online, but nothing is working. Once I got the feature to underline the chapter heading, but most of the time it doesn’t even do that much less have sound. 10 minutes after I walked away the stupid app read one sentence but since then it has not happened again no matter how hard I try. Won’t work on the app or online. This is the WORST ebook reading app I have ever used! I would advise if you are given the choice for your book to be on RedShelf or vital source or really anything else, do not choose RedShelf (at least if you need the text to speech feature!!)

The tech support does a fantastic job at helping resolve issues the application creates. The primary problem is that after an update or looking at one of my books on a web browser, this app will pop up an alert saying that the publisher only lets you view the material only on one device. Okay, got it. But, even if I delete the offline data, sign out from this app, and delete the app from my device - the next time I download Red Shelf, login, and try to download the books again … that stupid publisher warning will pop up and prevent me from downloading the book(s). To that extent, I would advise anyone using this app to view your books from a web browser (Chrome or Firefox. Safari on iPad works, but on Mac, any highlight shows up as black stripes in the background.).

The extra star is for the tech support. Overall the app is a bust and is more frustrating than useful.

It is amazing and convenient that I can access my books online or via the app. However, it is devastatingly disappointing that the “text to speech” does not work properly. It sounds like a robot that cannot read most words. It also reads invisible words on the page that are visible to the eye and one cannot choose where to make it start to read. I work full time, so being able to listen to audio books for my studies are necessary and vital during driving. However, I cannot use this function on any of the books I have purchased or rented from RedShelf. I might as well have purchased a paper book, because Instead of being able to use a “function” that is stated as an option, I have to loose additional sleep and time to read- as I would if I were to have the paper copy in hand- instead of being able to have the option for either to fit/suit my needs for that day/time.

GET YOUR TEXTBOOKS ANOTHER WAY!!! RedShelf was the cheapest way for me to rent my textbooks digitally however I would have much rather paid more for a better user experience. I have the app on my iPad Pro with the magic keyboard and this app does not support the scrolling function on my keyboard and it also doesn’t allow for zooming in and out to a certain scale, it only gives you a plus and minus button. Also the voice-to-text feature in this app might as well not even be there because it is the most robotic voice that is very dysfunctional and doesn’t bother to stop reading at periods for new sentences and is very difficult to understand. Plus, you cant adjust the speed that it reads at. And when it finishes reading one page, instead of automatically starting the next page it just rereads the same page you just read. I really hope the developers read my suggestions as well as all of the other reviews.