Apple Books

Apple Inc.

4.44star87,192 ratings

BookBooks & reading shelfNo in-app purchasesUpdated Dec 12, 2025

Biggest complaint · Sync & data

11.9%

19 of 160 negatives · store typical 2.2%

Recent reviews negative

46%

its 10 shelf rivals run 32% · 350 reviews held

Counted from real App Store reviews · 2026-08-24 · nothing estimated or modelled

Read those two together. Ratings are cumulative, reviews are recent — a 4.44star average beside 46% negative is the finding, not an error.

Ratings.

4.5out of 5

87,348 ratings · Apple’s own count, fetched daily

567,068

47,620

33,541

22,507

16,612

5 decisions.

Investigate sync & data first

extreme · 11.9% of this app’s 160 negative reviews, against 2.2% typical store-wide.

How it compares

this app: 11.9%; 19 of 160
its shelf: 4.2%; rivals only
store-wide: 2.2%; typical

Protect billing

15.6% of this app’s 160 negative reviews, against 32.1% typical store-wide, which is normal for the store.

How it compares

this app: 15.6%; 25 of 160
its shelf: 29.9%; rivals only
store-wide: 32.1%; typical

Watch ux

elevated · 5% of this app’s 160 negative reviews, against 2.9% typical store-wide.

How it compares

this app: 5%; 8 of 160
its shelf: 3.3%; rivals only
store-wide: 2.9%; typical

Limits & caps is at typical — skip it

2.5% of this app’s 160 negative reviews, against 2.8% typical store-wide, which is normal for the store.

n = 4. Too thin to act on — we recount weekly.

How it compares

this app: 2.5%; 4 of 160
its shelf: 3.1%; rivals only
store-wide: 2.8%; typical

Protect login & auth, ads, support, performance and accuracy

n = 44. Too thin to act on — we recount weekly.

How it compares

Login & auth1.3% of 160 · shelf 9.8% · store 13.2%
Ads2.5% of 160 · shelf 18.5% · store 10.7%
Support3.8% of 160 · shelf 6.7% · store 9.2%
Performance12.5% of 160 · shelf 18% · store 16.9%
Accuracy7.5% of 160 · shelf 8% · store 11.5%

The shelf in numbers

All 11 panel members · 2026-08-24 snapshot.

App	Ratings	Sync & data
Bookmory - reading tracker	16,071	36.4%
Apple Books	87,192	11.9%
Google Play Books & Audiobooks	9,632	10.8%
Skybrary – Kids Books & Videos	3,305	4.1%
Goodreads: Book Tracker & More	747,877	3.5%
Wattpad - Read & Write Stories	705,970	2.6%
Manobook: My Good Story Reader	36,575	2.3%
WeRead: Popular Books & Novels	1,347	2.1%
Yestory - Read Books & Booktok	10,461	1.3%
Inkitt Galatea: Audio & eBooks	287,824	0%
Epic - Kids' Books & Reading	518,633	0%

The whole shelf, counted

Every complaint across books & reading, frequency-ranked from real App Store reviews — the gaps nobody on this shelf has fixed.

Read the books & reading report

How this is counted

Every number is arithmetic over the reviews we hold, re-counted weekly — nothing modelled, nothing scored. Themes come from a frozen pattern classifier rather than a model reading reviews, so the same review always lands in the same bucket. Shares are of this app’s own recent negative reviews; the shelf figure is its rivals with this app excluded. The graded words have fixed cutoffs against the store’s typical rate: elevated from 1.15, high from 2, extreme from 3.5 times it. The page says what is broken and how it compares — never how to fix it, and never whether this app can win.