How are we liking "new" Scribd?

[taosaur]

About halfway through a 3-month Scribd trial, I'm still on the fence about signing up. Their subscription service now offers comics (or graphic novels, if you must), audiobooks and ebooks. The quality of the selection will depend on your tastes, but I'm finding it solid for comics, pretty good for audiobooks, and not worth bothering with (for my tastes) for ebooks.

Unfortunately, the apps for accessing that content are glitchy and feature-poor, though under active development. On my Android tablet, the app not only fails to load content, hangs, and crashes, but frequently it causes the whole system to reboot. When it does work, the way it handles comics is slow, limited, and poorly thought out.

The app is more stable (but not completely) on my newer, more common model Android phone, where it's mainly used for audiobooks. The audiobook player is reasonably feature-complete, except that it only keeps my place in an audiobook if I leave the app running in the background and sitting paused in my notifications all day long. I've also found syncing between devices (tablet, phone, and web interface on PC) wildly unpredictable.

Ebooks, based on my limited testing, fall somewhere in the middle: a better experience than comics, but less stable and feature complete than audiobooks. Regardless, I can get a better selection delivered to my KPW for free via my library, so I don't foresee using Scribd much for text.

If I can get an audiobook or two and a collection or two of comics out of it every month, it's probably worth the price of admission. For now, the best bet for comics is the web viewer on my nice, IPS PC monitor. I've managed some comics reading on my tablet, but there's always the chance that the next page turn or orientation switch will fling me an unpredictable number of pages ahead, and if I finish a book, odds are at best 50/50 that I'll be able to find and load another one without a crash. Page turns, even when working as intended, don't take you to the top of the next page, either, which means either squinting at full pages or lots of fidgety scrolling.

Anyone else have impressions on the service, selection, or apps? For me, the main competition out there is public libraries with Overdrive. For a while there I was spending quite a bit on Amazon/Audible "add narration" packages, too. It's super convenient, but go through more than 1-2 of those per month at $10-15 each ($3-9 for the ebook and $2-6 for audio) and it adds up quickly.

[booklover6]

I absolutely love Scribd for audio books. I listen to them on an Android phone (which I don't use as a phone). My son just started listening to Scribd books on his phone, too. I was so pleased when he found some he liked.

I occasionally read an ebook in the app, if that's the only place I can get it. I find the text too light. I also use an older version of the app, because they made the margins too wide on the latest version. I read in the app on my Kindle Fire HD 6".

[AnemicOak]

On the one hand I like it a lot. I went through a trial when they first launched and barely used it (read one book) because I couldn't get past the poor quality of the apps. I'm on a new two month trial thanks to a code I found and this time I forced myslef to use it a bit since I found they had an entire series I wanted to check out that my library didn't have and I didn't want to spend $40+ on.

Since then I've been using it quite a bit.

IMO that apps need tons of work. I use both the Android & iOS apps and both need more adjustment for books and syncing between apps only works rarely & I hate it when I've been reading for an hour and then a pop-up asks me if I want to sync to page 1. I do want to be able to switch from device to device and pickup where I left off. For audiobooks they're glitchy. Again sync works randomly. On the last book I listened to it would restart at the beginning of the current chapter when resuming from being paused which sucked. For audiobooks I've had better luck with Android than iOS. With both I randomly had problems with downloading specific audiobooks to the device as well. I also hate the pause between each chapter, but can live with it.

Reading/listening are their entire business. They really need to be taking the best out there (Marvin, Mantano, Moon+, etc. for books) (Audible for audiobooks) and modelling their features on those instead of offering the bare minimum. Not that those apps are perfect or anything, but...

[Ghitulescu]

The Scribd before subscription was much better (maybe to lure customers before making it commercial).

[ebusinesstutor]

I have no problem finding great ebooks to read in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Lots of good business books as well.

It is a great value for the money.

The odd app glitch, but it seems to work quite well for me.

[connie2000]

I have had a subscription for 6 months and use it mainly for audiobooks. I listen on my Ascend Mate 2 phone and have never had any problems. It always saves my place and I have synced to other devices. It is sometimes touchy about downloading to my device.

[rockdaleph]

I've been using scribd mostly for audiobooks, and mostly on my iphone 6p. The selection of books and audio is great! However, the ios app is VERY flawed! Bookmarks disappear and are changed, it doesn't always remember where it is (for audiobooks) even on the SAME device, much less synced to another device. Further, at least for some books, the chapter that the software thinks you're on is not the same as the chapter announced orally by the reader. Tech support is courteous, but somewhat slow, and more important, seems incapable of dealing with these issues. Once there was a wait of several months before an upgrade came out that was supposed to fix problems, but it did not.

Downloads in the ios version are sometimes troublesome (the queue stalls, and can't be re-ordered, at least I can't figure out how).

I've had a little experience using the android version of the app on a kindle fire. Its somewhat better, though I'm not sure yet how much.

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by booklover6

I occasionally read an ebook in the app, if that's the only place I can get it. I find the text too light. I also use an older version of the app, because they made the margins too wide on the latest version. I read in the app on my Kindle Fire HD 6".

Yeah, I still have to do the same, but unfortunately, it keeps the annoying icons bars on top and bottom as that old version doesn't use immersion mode on my Fire6. It does use it on my Nexus, but I don't like reading on it. The Fire6 is just so much smaller and lighter. But I am torn between the annoying and distracting top and bottom bar to stare at or dealing with the way to large margins in the newer versions that make it almost impossible to read. 6 inch screen is so small that those margins give me like 2-3 words per line. Its horrible, like reading a register receipt. I wish they change it.

Its the #1 reason I haven't really used my Scribd subscription much anymore and I am actually thinking of cancelling. I love the service, the content, but the margins on the Fire make me sad. . If I don't use it, there is no point in paying for it.

I never seen it on a ipad or such as I don't have any apple devices.

I got my Fire6 to read all the services that I can't use my e-ink kindle on, Scribd, Overdrive, etc. But their app now is really putting a stop to this. I just want normal margins back. I waited months now.

I am not big on audiobooks, just can't get into them. Not for lack of trying. So its all reading fiction for me.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by rockdaleph

I've been using scribd mostly for audiobooks, and mostly on my iphone 6p. The selection of books and audio is great! However, the ios app is VERY flawed! Bookmarks disappear and are changed, it doesn't always remember where it is (for audiobooks) even on the SAME device, much less synced to another device. Further, at least for some books, the chapter that the software thinks you're on is not the same as the chapter announced orally by the reader. Tech support is courteous, but somewhat slow, and more important, seems incapable of dealing with these issues. Once there was a wait of several months before an upgrade came out that was supposed to fix problems, but it did not.

Downloads in the ios version are sometimes troublesome (the queue stalls, and can't be re-ordered, at least I can't figure out how).

I've had a little experience using the android version of the app on a kindle fire. Its somewhat better, though I'm not sure yet how much.

The Android app needs a lot of work, too. I'm in the beta testing group, and at least I feel like they are genuinely interested improving it.

Nonetheless, the content is good enough that, even with the apps numerous flaws and omissions, my wife has asked that we keep the subscription up after our free time is over.

[jhowell]

Scribd released a new version of their iOS app today.

What's New in 3.10
This update’s all about making your reading and listening experience as great as it can be. Not only have we improved nearly everything to do with audiobooks, we’ve also completely changed our display panel so that you, dear reader, can read exactly the way you want.
The Details:
• New! In your display panel (tap the “Aa” icon), you can now select from six beautiful fonts, adjust your background color and brightness, and change your alignment.
• Improved! The quickest and smoothest page turns around.
• New! Your audiobooks will continue to download even when you exit the app.
• Improved! Audiobook chapter transitions so seamless you won’t even know they’re there.
• Many, many bug fixes.

[jhowell]

After playing with the new version of the Scribd app on iOS for a bit, I find it to be less of an improvement than I would like. Three missing adjustments I would like to have are: margin size, line spacing, and the ability to turn hyphenation off. I haven't used it enough to see whether reliability has improved or not.

ETA: It looks like turning off justification also turns off hyphenation. It still would be nice to control them separately.

[Atunah]

I just got an update notice on my Android phone so I am installing it now to see what it looks like. But if it still doesn't give margin options, or to be able to turn off hyphenation, I'll still have to stay on the old one I guess.

eta: So I put it on my Fire6 after putting it on my phone. So I could transfer it over with an app.
Unfortunately, margins are still the same wide as they were after 3.8 and on.

Now the good things. 6 fonts, although I think the old one I used is called post modern. Looks the closest to the one I always liked. Still like it best. The font is darker, that I can tell, its nice. Being able to change backround from white to beige and black and with a sliding scale is really nice. So I can make my beige darker or lighter, depending on where I am at.

The other thing is, it is really snappy now. I was using an older version for a while and it was of course laggy and because of no immersion on Fire6, sometimes the last line cut off. But even the 3.9 tended to be a bit slow and laggy on it. 3.10 is snappy.
Page turns really are much smoother as they have been, huge improvement on my Fire.

I'll read on it for a while and see if I need to downgrade version later if the margin annoys me too much. And the hyphenation. I don't know why people like that. Maybe because I am used to reading Kindle books? I don't recall all these hyphens there.

I have no ithingies so I can't compare the differences.

[49Kat]

I have mentioned on another thread my ongoing issues with the Scribd app on my Apple devices, which started with the update to 3.9.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=255825

I've had several e-mail exchanges with Scribd about this, as well as this:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=258626

The second issue has resolved. The first one continues. With the most recent update, I am still seeing the freezes. I haven't timed it with a stopwatch, so far I've just counted and got to about 20 seconds. It really takes away from the enjoyable use of the app. The only reason I am continuing the subscription is because I like the book selection. If the time comes when I am finding I am not using it, whether due to finding my reading material more often elsewhere or if the freezing just becomes intolerable, I will just have to do what makes sense.

So far, I haven't taken the usual steps of uninstalling and reinstalling the app to see if that resolves the freezing with this current version (3.10). I suspect the freezing is caused by an attempt to synchronize with the server. I am just reading now with a device disconnected from the wifi, and there has been no freezing. It is unfortunate that there doesn't seem to have been a fix for this.

BTW, Bluefire doesn't synchronize gracefully either (the app freezes worse than Scribd if I have synchronization on, so I've turned it off) and Overdrive doesn't synchronize bookmarks and place at all, even though it claims to have that capability. The perfect reading app for me as far as functionality is Kindle. Books synchronize easily, I love the collections feature, and it just works. I want to read and enjoy my books, and I want them to synchronize across my devices. I am not interested in fussing with settings and troubleshooting. Kobo is second place, having overcome a lot of bugs it was experiencing a while back (to the point where I stopped buying books from Kobo until I got a 90% off coupon). The highlighting function in Kobo is performing properly once again as well, which is how it came ahead of iBooks for me. The books in the Apple store are generally the highest priced. I've actually only ever purchased one book from Apple, the rest in my Apple library are freebies and pdf's.

I haven't tried the audiobooks with Scribd, but if e-books have this much trouble navigating the server, I can't imagine audiobooks would be any better.

I really like the Scribd subscription model and I hope to see their service improve. I think it will. I could have happily stayed with the pre-3.9 app on my iOS devices, as I was having no issues with it whatsoever, and I don't read "comics" anyway.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Atunah

Now the good things. 6 fonts, although I think the old one I used is called post modern. Looks the closest to the one I always liked. Still like it best. The font is darker, that I can tell, its nice. Being able to change backround from white to beige and black and with a sliding scale is really nice. So I can make my beige darker or lighter, depending on where I am at.

How exciting. But where are you seeing 6 fonts?

Ah...it was the book I looked at that had only 2 fonts.

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by booklover6

How exciting. But where are you seeing 6 fonts?

Ah...it was the book I looked at that had only 2 fonts.

You mean not all books show the 6 fonts? I didn't even check with more than 2 books. Do you notice it being a bit darker?