Deseret Bookshelf LDS Books App Reviews

This app is great. I love using it, its easy to use and they provide a great selection of books. The only issue as you will read or have already read is that this app for some reason, does not save your highlights. Other than that I would say it is a great tool and that I love it. Hopefully they will fix this issue, making this app amazing.

Knowledge on call when ever I need it. Learn whale you have those dead times waiting.

I love the Deseret Bookshelf app! I buy and listen to audiobooks all the time, and if I ever have a problem they are right there to help. I love being able to purchase, download and listen to these audiobooks without having to plug my phone into my computer. Its great having my content available on my phone and tablet.

They have been working out the problems that plagued it at first. This is a wonderful app! Im am so grateful to be able to buy an audiobook/talk and be able to listen to it immediately

This review is about the DB Bookshelf app, not the content that Deseret Book publishes. First of all, I dont know why this app exists. It duplicates the functionality of e-reader and audiobook apps which, frankly, do it much better, such as Kindle, Audible, and iBooks. Actually, I do know the reason: control. Deseret Book doesnt seem to trust (or want to pay) those heathen resources to interoperate with their content or manage their digital rights. So if you want to read or listen to DB content, you have to use their app. Thats all there is to it. But what about the functionality? Bleh. I give it credit for basically allowing you to read an e-book or listen to an audiobook. But it has so many problems, I wish I could use something else for this content. On more than one occasion, Ive downloaded written or audio content to enjoy on a trip. I double-checked that it was fully downloaded. But when I settled down to to read or listen while traveling, the book wouldnt open without first connecting to the internet -- unavailable while traveling -- making it useless, a waste of time and money. The thing that infuriates me the most is that I cant actually read all the content I paid for. The A book I bought, "The Peacegiver," has a lot of passages in italics. On such pages, the bottom line of text is cut off, and gets worse on subsequent pages until it is missing an entire line of text. So I dont even know what Im missing. Lately, Ive been listening to an audiobook. The biggest annoyance is that every time I pause the audio — to use another app or to get on the bus or at the end of the day — when I go to start again, I find that it rewinds to some random spot, perhaps a couple of minutes, often more, and most often all the way to the beginning of the chapter. Arrgh! Also, I’ve found that the controls on Apple earphones (earbuds) don’t work. That is, you can control the volume, but not pause, play, rewind or fast forward. These controls on my earphones work on all other apps, just not DB Bookshelf. Finally, there’s a wish list of features I wish it had, such as a sleep timer when listening to audio content. So, I can’t really recommend it. But since Deseret Book has a monopoly on its content and using this app, you’re pretty much stuck. Make the best of it, I guess.

The big thing I liked about this app was quotes to text not image. But that is gone. Other then that I like the app.

I want to like this app, but in my view a feature is still needed: the ability to completely delete a book. Sometimes a book is read but it is disliked, but after "removing" it, it still hangs around as an image in ones library because it remains in the Cloud. Annoying! I would suggest that the app should try to mimic the interface and functionality of iBooks.

I really like what this app is trying to do. Im testing whether to use this app to listen to church audio books. But, after I come back to listen, about half the time it loses my place and either skips to the beginning or end of the clip/chapter I am listening to. This is extremely frustrating having to find out where I left off in the audio. Hope this is fixed soon. Dont know that I have the patience otherwise to continue trying find out where I left off with the audiobook.

Very nice presentation, handles a LOT of books without bogging down, intuitive interface, very responsive! Thank you!

Love the free books and am glad to be able to purchase many others. Good interface to read the books. However... Wish it had more content and lower prices. DB is always expensive and it feels like monopoly power.

Has plenty of bugs that need to be fixed ordering is one its not easy to edit purchases added to cart Also to get to the ebooks from the sales page is not smooth

This app was once great. Now all it does is crash.

I am in love and I dont know how I lived without it

I have enjoyed it very much! K Bull

This app has a good concept, but is not very user-friendly. I cannot figure out how to move a bookmark. I have to create a new one, and then delete the old one. If I click on a link that takes me to another book or the Scriptures, I cant get back to where I was. There is a back button, but always takes me to the wrong page. Usually about 3 pages prior to where I actually was. Also, sometimes when I click on a bookmark it cant even take me to the right spot. Again, it takes me about three pages before where the bookmark actually is. It makes trying to navigate between materials very difficult and frustrating. It detracts from the spiritual learning process. Also, the app does crash from time to time and this is very frustrating.

The app is a wonderful addition to my gospel studies. I do wish there was a specific bookmark just for general reading. If I have marked several spots in the same book, I have to search through all of them to find the actual place I left off reading. I would like to be able to open my book to the exact page I left. Other than that, I love it.

Every time I try to read the 29 messages the app crashes on me.

I love this app, and the ability it gives me to take my gospel study books with me. My only gripe is that sometimes it is hard to get the toolbar to open when I Select in a book.

I love the access to great information. Went trough a period of frequent crashing and I would have to redownload, but that seems to have been fixed. However, in reading I did a lot of marking and making notes, but the marks and notes seem to be randomly distributed now over other parts of the book other than where I had made them. Wish they could be brought back to where they were made. So they are meaningful.

Keeps getting better all the time. Daily note(s) dont always show up on a daily or even sometimes weekly basis but the improvements that have come have been great! This app is very useful indeed. Reviewing a synopsis of a book in your library is too minimal. Therefore only 4 stars. I really want to be able to know what Im about to view or looking for to view (read) without having to open the book and hunt through it only to find that it is not what I was looking for. However, it is a very good app and DB is great! A bit too spend for many selections but...