hoopla Digital
reviews and complaints

The fact that you cant download audio book to computer to download to an MP3 is rediculous. Overdrive was great and now things are going backwards. I can't use my phone to listen to books. I can't afford to buy and I can't download from Hoopla. I cant sit at computer and live stream. I wish hoopla would give a good reason why they made it so mp3 people were screwed. I can't believe the libraries customers put up with this. It is so sad that a company is so thoughless of the people who use their product. I give it less than 1

My desire was to be able to read books from my local library while temporarily home bound. Had trouble setting it up because my closest local library didn’t appear in local list. I chose the next closest library and was unable to switch or add another library when I called library for instructions. Also when chose book. it was frozen . Finally since couldn’t add my closest library. I started again having to have a different email address. I thought all books in the library would be available, but the newest ones that could be checked out from library in book form had only summary books not the original book. No books I requested were available as ebooks. There were lots of books from which to choose but most seem to be unknown authors and titles like many Kindle free books are. I did choose a movie to view which was great seen on my largest size iPad. I tried to request some videos without success, but the list seemed to contain some I’d want to see. So main thing I’d like changed is to be able to add other libraries and switch from one to the other. Having to have multiple email addresses isn’t convenient. There are a number of local libraries where I live and would like access to all of them. My 2 library cards work in all the branches. ( there are private and public libraries) Also why can I get a newly published book from the library and it’s not available on Hoopla? Hoopla should re reconfigured and in general be made much easier to use and have more new books available as ebooks. Haven’t figured out how to unfreeze books I’ve chosen. Hoopla designers should read all the questions posed to Google to see what to fix.
Also why such a low limit per month? It seems to be 6 per month and I think it seems to be combined ebooks and videos. Why can’t borrow one and then return that before borrowing another? 6 books is extremely low limit especially if combined with videos borrowed!

Update: [protected]
I am still using and enjoying Hoopla in conjunction with my local library group. I now have my wife and oldest child using it and we are all enjoying this app.
----------------
Normally I don't write reviews but since there seem to be some negative remarks about things I did not nor never have encountered, I thought it to be appropriate to write one.

When I first discovered the app, I decided not to get it because of what I had read. Then I decided to give it a shot because, let's face it, a lot of people can't figure out the simplest of things sometimes. I believe the trick, if there is one, to ensuring an enjoyable experience is to be sure you download whatever you borrow to your device. This eliminates the need to stream and, at least for me, prevents many of the unpleasantries other experienced.

This has turned out to be one of the best apps I use for entertainment. I have "borrowed" and listened to audiobooks, videos and music and have never experienced a problem. I probably spend more hours per month in Hoopla than I do in Audible as far as books go.

That being said, the offerings can sometimes seem slim, and very dated. The quality of narrators in the audiobooks can vary widely. I've listened to books that were awesomely narrated with different voices and just top notch; conversely I started a few books where the narrators (often the authors of the book) were horrible, to the point I couldn't enjoy the book because their reading was so bad. Music and Video can be real hit and miss; for me, mostly miss but I do find titles I like. Let's face reality though, this is a library offering and it's free-- it's not like it's a subscription service like Netflix, Hulu or Audible so you shouldn't expect to find every book, movie and album from the market.

Overall this is just an awesome piece of technology and now that I've experienced it, I can't believe it took me so long to find out about it!

This is by far and away the best library app I've used--much better than Overdrive! I primarily use it for audio books and graphic novel ebooks, since I'm not a huge fan of regular ebooks. Downloading books is a breeze--just press download, and the book is there within about 10 seconds. Overdrive takes 10 minutes to download an audio book for me!

What I love most about hoopla is how everything they have in their catalog is available all the time. No waiting in lines, which is so silly anyways for digital files. If they have it, so can you. And it doesn't matter what library you access it through--the collection is the same. Compare to overdrive where the collection varies from library to library and you have to wait in line for ebooks the same as you do for a physical copy.

I've seen some people complain about lending limits, and that's fair, but that's also your library's doing, not the app. I'm a patron of more than one library, and one of them allows me to check out 20 items/month from hoopla and the other only 10. So if you think your lending limit is too low, tell your librarian! Maybe your library will increase it if they know there's higher demand.

I also want to mention how happy I am with the number of comics available. It really feeds my addiction! Lots of classic trades and also tons of more recent releases--you can get the first three volumes of lots of N52 series, which is great if you don't want to track them down or pay for them.

The only criticism I have is that audio books can go a little on the fritz if you have a bad connection. If I pause a book while going through the tunnel on BART, for instance, I won't be able to play it again until we're out of the tunnel. But I feel that's pretty reasonable. Also, it will start your audio book over from the beginning if you're not careful. When you hit resume, give it a few seconds. If you hit the play button afterwards, it'll go back to the beginning. Not fun!

Overall, this is my go-to resource for audio books. Highly recommend!

The Hoopla system is a treasure trove. Being able to read a full series of books from the first to the most recent without having to wait for it to be available is a huge luxury. So much so that I can't complain that my library limits me to only 20 a month. That is pretty darn generous.

The reading app does have some annoying bugs, though. Firstly, it periodically flashes a pop-up message telling me that it cannot connect to the Hoopla server while I am in the midst of reading a book. Why is the app wasting my battery trying to connect to the Hoopla server to begin with? The book is already downloaded. I won't need anything else from the server until I am done reading it.

Second, there is something buggy about transitioning from one chapter to the next. I think the books may get stored in part-book files and when one reaches the end of a part, which might happen, for instance, at the end of chapter three, the only way you can get it to go to chapter four is by closing it, returning to the book description and clicking on the "read" link again. The app seems to be incapable of smoothly transitioning from part to part.

And finally, I have missed not having a way to get an on the fly dictionary lookup with this app as I have come to enjoy with other reading apps, and I also wish there was a way to be able to copy a few paragraphs and save them to a digital notepad for later savoring. But overall, I think the app has promise.

Addition: the newest March update is more buggy than ever. The app closes out spontaneously and makes you go through several steps to get back to where you were in the book. It usually happens when you try to turn to the second page of every fourth chapter or so. Instead of going to the second page, it skips to the end of that chapter and then when you attempt to back into the chapter the book closes out. VERY annoying. The app still also keeps trying to connect to the Hoopla server at the weirdest times and interrupts reading with an error message.

I really wish you would fix this. Please!

This app is my go-to for books when overdrive doesn't have the selection I want. I've actually been on it more than Overdrive recently because of the variety of book genres Hoopla has. I love this app because it has so many different books available and with a wide variety of genres.
Unfortunately, though I like this app a lot, there are a few issues that I have trouble with, as well as a few common features that would improve the app well.
For starters, this app would be so much easier to find books and movies on if there was a way to pick multiple genres when searching for a type of book. I could find a book I want and it's both in the romance and detective genre. However, if I want to find books similar to that one, I can't search up books in both romance and detective genres at the same time. This makes it really hard to narrow down stories to read and forces me to waste a lot of time discarding the stories I don't want.
My other recommendation is a way to recommend titles. If there is one, I haven't seen it. And trust me, I've looked. There are some books I just can't find anywhere unless they are added to overdrive or hoopla. Sometimes what I recommend to Overdrive is added to the book collection but other times it isn't. In that case I look to Hoopla, hoping it will be able to provide what the other app could not. But if it doesn't have the title I want, I can't even recommend it. This can be somewhat frustrating.
Overall, Hoopla is a good app but needs improvements. In my opinion, my first recommendation about the easier navigation of book searching by the selection of multiple genres would be a lot of help to app users.

Edit: After the recent update, my books won't save my reading spot like they did before. If I close the book and reopen it, it starts me at the beginning of the chapter, which can be frustrating if I only have 10 pages left of a 42 page chapter. I have to scroll through all the previous pages. And the bookmarks button doesn't work either anymore. If I bookmark a page, when I click it it just takes me to the beginning of a chapter. Occasionally, maybe one out of 10 tries, it'll work. But mostly it refuses to work at all. Is there anyway to have this fixed please?

I would give zero stars if possible. I only use it when an audiobook from San Francisco Public library is not available on any other app. Every time I use it to listen to a book, The app will log me out at least once, and then I have to reset my password. I don’t mean it happens every time I use it, I mean sometime while I’m reading the book the app is going to kick me out and will not allow me to log back in until I reset my password on the hoopla website For example today I was on public transportation and I paused the book. When I got off the train pushed play but the app didn’t work and I got the log in screen. I logged in with the password that was saved on my phone but the app said that my password was no good. I tried to reset my password in the app but the reset button was grayed out so the only option was to cancel. I rebooted my phone but it still didn’t work, so I had to go to the hoopla website and reset my password This app is not a good customer experience for SFPL members. iPhone 8+ iOS 15.4.1 Addendum 4/30/2022 Last night I paused the book for about five hours. I did not close the app and there were no battery issues on my phone, but when I went to keep listening to the book it had reset the page one Since I had bookmarked anything yesterday I had to search and find my place. This is something else that happens nearly every single time I’m using the app to listen to a book. Addendum 5/1/2022 Took out my AirPods which pauses the app. 30 minutes later put the AirPods back in but the hoopla app has logged me out. When I try to log back in, it says user name/pw no good. I go to hoopla.com and password is still not recognized so I have to reset my password AGAIN

UPDATE 5/18/2022
when I went to bed I was listening to hoopla and I said it to turn off in 15 minutes
When I woke up hoopla had reset the book as if I hadn’t started and I was at the very beginning

5/20/2022
I was listening to hoopla in the car at 10 AM when I turned off the sound system. At 1 PM I restarted the app and what do you know hoopla no longer recognizes my password. so guess what? I am resetting my password for the second time in the past three weeksLike I said if I could use any other app to listen to a book at SF public library I would

This app is the best among the library Apps out there but it sill has issues. First, it regularly jumps back to the beginning of a title without reason. If you’re listening to a 10 hour audio book you should make sure to place bookmarks to show your progress. I place a bookmark at end of every chapter. Hoopla WILL loose you place.

Also, it looks like Hoopla has not built-in Apple CarPlay compatibility yet. Audio playback apps, like Stitcher for example, already have CarPlay integration for the in-dash car systems. Currently Hoopla sorta works but the controls and feature integration are not there yet.

Use this app but bookmark regularly.

8/28

The three-star reviewers of this app are correct. The app needs help. The reviewer named AllBigToes summed it up well. Even after an audiobook or music title has been downloaded it still won’t behave. This app is broken after all these years. I detail the ways below.

1. If you put the app into pause for more than a few minutes it frequently fails when you try to get it to start playing again. You have to force quit. When the app comes back it’s often confused as to where it was and starts from the beginning. If you’re listening to an audio book you should definitely make sure to place bookmarks to show your progress. I place a bookmark at end of every chapter. Hoopla WILL loose you place.

Other apps are able to resume playback from where they were when paused. Is there a reason this always goes back? It’s frustrating when you’re four hours into an audio book, perhaps driving along, and you suddenly loose your place. It’s a challenge to get back to where you were.

2. Hoopla only has 30 second forward and 30 second back commands. Why can’t it jump to the beginnings of chapters? I hope the developer will look into this.

3. Also, it looks like Hoopla has not built-in Apple CarPlay compatibility yet. Audio playback apps, like Stitcher for example, already have CarPlay integration for the in-dash car systems. Currently Hoopla sorta works but the controls and feature integration are not there yet.

Hoopla Digital: Please dedicate some time to fixing this app. The content is great and it’s wonderful to have this option to borrow titles from our library. These two problems above consistently rearing their heads and users would be very grateful if you fixed it up. Thank you

First, I appreciate the value Hoopla brings with its huge library of digital content. That said, wow, this app has gotten worse as it gets updated. After the last update, I consistently see -

1. Unbalanced audio. Often, I have to adjust my iPhone's audio balance to favor the left audio channel, because otherwise, hoopla favors the right channel. This happens with multiple audiobooks. I've tested the same headset and phone against simple stuff, like music, or audible, and it works fine, but books in Hoopla always are louder in the right ear/channel than the left.

2. Broken downloads. It'll say it downloaded the book to my device, but when I play the book, it plays part way through (anywhere from 25% -50%) then drops completely. If I delete and redownload the book, sometimes this fixes it.

3. Lose WiFi connection - lose book. To save on data, I disable cellular data for most apps. Well, this makes Hoopla a giant pain, because, if it loses its Wifi connection, then the book just stops dead with the "Cannot connect to hoopla's servers at this time" error. Problem? Well, the book is fully downloaded, so why does it still need to keep checking with Hoopla? And this isn't like it's checking one an hour, it is constantly checking for a connection, even with a downloaded book, and no connection, even for a split second, causes it to just stop playing back the audiobook or music. Also, when this happens, it loses my place by 30-60 seconds AND loses my chosen playback speed (usually 1.5)

4. Broken playback speed in audiobooks - I like to listen at 1.5 speed, apparently hoopla does not like me to do that. If I send the app to the background at any time on my iPhone, it will immediately drop back to 1.0x speed, but, if I pull the app to the foreground, it shows 1.5x on the screen, but it's obvious the audio is playing at 1.0x. I've noticed it especially does this if at any time the connection to the hoopla servers is broken (see #3).

5. Why no 2.0x playback speed? Overdrive and Audible both offer 2.0x speed playback on audiobooks, which can be handy when you have some narrators that read sloowwwwwwwlllyyyy. But there's no option for this in Hoopla. Why not? I guess I shouldn't worry, since even if I were to set something to 2.0x, Hoopla would, the minute there's the slightest break in the data connection, reset me to 1.0.

Hoopla, in partnership with my local public library, offers a cornucopia of content: Books of the prose, comic and audio varieties; film and television shows; and music albums.

The app allows me to check out five items per calendar month — books are available to read for three weeks, albums for one week and movies for up to three days. I’m not clear on how TV loans work, but it seems each individual episode counts toward the five-item cap.

The book catalog seems to be particularly broad and includes a number of recent publications. I was also pleased with the movie collection. The TV offerings seemed to be heavily slanted toward British shows. I have barely glanced at the album selection, as that does not interest me much.

To date, I’ve read three comic-book compilations (200-plus pages) and one novel, and I’ve watched one movie. (Hoopla’s video functionality seemed fine to me, although I viewed the film on my laptop’s web browser.) However, the reading experience leaves much to be desired.

Hoopla did not allow me to bookmark comic-book pages. The volumes I read did not have chapter divisions that Hoopla would let me navigate by, and there’s no “jump back” button. In short, navigating comic books was a nightmare.

Reading prose was even more confounding, not least because the app kept crashing. Upon restart, the app never returned me to the page I’d been reading but instead showed me the last borrowed item I had been using. I soon tired of repeatedly reopening the book due to crashes.

I could bookmark pages in the prose novel, but the app organized and identified these by the date and time I selected pages, which seemed an odd and potentially confusing system. When I searched for text and went to a specific search result, there was no way to resume searching for the same term; instead, I had to initiate a search all over again.

Worst of all, a line of text was frequently cut off at the tops and bottoms of pages. I think I discovered that this particular glitch occurred after I’d conducted a text search and could be fixed by closing and reopening the book. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but all these problems really got on my nerves. It’s baffling that an app with a text-display function in 2019 would have so little polish.

Based on available content, I would give Hoopla 4.5 or 5 stars. Based on Hoopla’s functionality displaying digital comic books, the app deserves 3 to 3.5 stars. Based on Hoopla’s functionality displaying digital prose, the app deserves 2 to 2.5 stars.

This is the first time I have ever written an app review, which will tell you how bad this app is. I like to read. For borrowing ebooks, my local library provides access to both Libby and Hoopla, which is great. There is, however, one key difference between the two apps: Libby lets you read books that you borrow from your local library on Amazon Kindle (either the device or the Kindle app on your phone), and Hoopla does not. This would be (mostly) fine if the Hoopla app was a good eReader, but it’s shockingly bad. Some key complaints: 1. It frequently forgets where you are in your current book, and instead just puts you back to the start of the book when you open the app. Yes, you can place a bookmark and go to it, but this is one of the key things an eReader should get right. 2. If you tap on a footnote, then read the footnote, then tap to go back, about 50% of the time it brings you back to - you guessed it - the very start of the book. Better set a bookmark before reading a footnote! Perhaps this is a content issue, but honestly from the reader’s perspective who cares? This “just works” on Kindle and Books and doesn’t “just work” on Hoopla. 3. It randomly logs you out. This is not a banking app, it’s a book reader. Are you afraid people will see what I’m reading? 4. If the app gets closed while in the background, it doesn’t open to the book you were reading. Instead it opens to some sort of Home Screen, where you have to find the book you were reading and (hopefully) have it open to the place you left off. 5. Like other eReaders / apps, tapping the screen brings up a menu with, among other things, a slider at the bottom of the screen which is supposed to let you slide through the book’s pages to where you left off (since it doesn’t remember). But sliding along this slider doesn’t do that, at least on iOS - instead it acts like you are sliding from the left side of the screen, which is one of the ways to switch between apps on iOS. So instead of scrolling through the book, you end up scrolling through your open apps instead. Getting to the page you were at is an exercise in frustration. 6. Moving forward through the book by tapping the right side of the screen or sliding your finger from right to left mostly works (but not always!), but going back a page by tapping on the left side of the screen is totally hit and miss, and you end up back at the start of the book more often than not. 7. No dark mode for reading at night that I could find, at least on iOS. 8. A slow startup splash screen telling me what library my content is coming from. Do you not think I already KNOW what my local library is, since I had to link my library account with Hoopla?! Just show me my book already. I am no big fan of Amazon and have quibbles about both their iOS app and the single Kindle device I have ever purchased. But the quality of both of them is orders of magnitude higher than the Hoopla reader. It’s at the point where although Hoopla offers content that Libby does not, I just won’t borrow that content because reading it is so frustrating. This would all be solved by allowing books borrowed via Hoopla to be read on Kindle or even in the Books app! Edit: it’s even worse than I thought - bookmarks don’t work either. The only way to reliably get back to where you were is to go page by page, and if you go too far you can’t go back either - it goes back to the start of the book. I wish I could give zero stars.

I don’t know whether the problems I’ve experienced are widespread, or just triggered by the specific book I borrowed/read.

That said, while reading “Bicycle/Race” on my iPhone 11 Pro Max (version 4.31.1) I found the app has problems with page continuity. Specifically, when turning to the next page on occasion (maybe 10 times total in the book) it would jump ahead many pages (perhaps 12 pages forward), forcing me to flip back to where I was.

Going to the same page where the problem began, flipping to the next page would trigger the same jump forward, so I had to figure out how many pages to go back each time without going too far back to the problem page.

Looking for an example now to provide after finishing the book, I see one at the beginning of Chapter 3. The app says “page 1 of 225” at that point, even though it was stating “page 55 of 225” just a couple of pages before chapter 3.

Needless to say, this really needs fixing. It’s incredibly frustrating to reading continuity to have this happen.

Further, the endnote references in this book don’t jump to the actual reference at the end and appear inline just as numbers like this.25

If my library didn’t have some titles exclusively with hoopla, I would never use it. Aside from the clunky design, listening to audiobooks on this app has several drawbacks.

My first and largest complaint is that there are no chapter time stamps on any book I’ve come across. How is that possible? Even CDs would still allow you to skip to the next track. Without these, it becomes incredibly difficult to supplement with actual reading like I usually do.

It’s made all the more annoying by the next problem, which is that the navigation buttons are schizophrenic. It says 15 sec forward and back, but fast tapping increases the amount of seconds skipped, to the point that 5 taps could put you 5 min back. What’s the increase between each tap? Hard to say as the app gives no indication.

Finally, the new update features a bug that puts your playback speed back to 1x sometimes, like when you remove a headphone jack. The app would still say 1.5x or whatever, but you have to go in and select it again to play at the right speed. Hopefully you’re not driving while having to deal with that.

All in all, it’s a mess. If I can use other apps, I do.

I've used Hoopla for a few movies, mostly without problems, and for ebooks, which are buggy.

The Good:
- App seems well laid out, and search functions well
- Keeps me logged in (unlike Overdrive, which seems to have logged me out of libraries every time I'm on a trip and want to use it)
- Flexible suggestions.

The Bad:
- App freezes up two to four times over the course of reading a novel. This requires that it be force quit. However, it does seem to retain my place.
- App jumps ahead many pages occasionally when I "turn" a page. Often, but not always, at the start of a new chapter. This is really, really, annoying.
Usually I can fix this via the index link. But book I’m reading now has a broken index. Now I’m stuck at the end of the book, with no way to go back. That’s a major failing.
- Only three sizes for text in an ebook. In the book I am reading now, even the large size us tiny. Close to making the app unusable for that book.
- Can only have one library set up in the app at a time (Overdrive lets you set up multiple libraries and easily switch among them. When is has not logged you out.)
- No support for users from inside the app. This is not acceptable when it hiccups and there is no apparent solution.

Updated February 13

This last update, oh how I wish I hadn’t updated, renders the app completely useless. The app begins to open then crashes on both my iPad and iPhone. I’ve restarted my iPad and have deleted and downloaded the app twice. Same problem. I can go to the website and borrow but I can’t read or listen to anything because you can only stream and download through the app.

This isn’t a problem with my devices. This is a problem that began immediately after updating the app. I was listening to books right up until the update, now nothing.

Updated March 25

Same old story...they update the app and things go buggy again. I report the problem which is a complete waste of time. I’m told my RAM is very low and I should delete apps to improve it. What? Deleting apps won’t do anything to my RAM and I have one app open at a time because I completely close an app when I’m finished. I see others are having the sane issues...pages flipping ahead or the screen freezes and the app closes. But it isn’t them. It’s me. Yeah, right.

***

Until this last update I was fine with the app. It worked well for my needs. My library has a 5 item limit not 8 or 10 as others are reporting.

With this update the bookmark interface is cumbersome and difficult to use.

With this update the speed is constantly changing from 1.25, where I set it, back to 1.0.

With this update the audio keeps resetting itself so I listen to a couple of sentences and then hear them again.

I hope these issues are addressed. Soon.