EasyReader – App review
EasyReader is a book reader created by Dolphin, which allows it’s users to gain access to books through online libraries in an accessible way, with customizable text sizing and full support for VoiceOver and TalkBack.
Introduction
Easy Reader is an application developed to allow, easier access to audio books from various libraries across the world allowing a user to have a one app approach which is both easy to use and fully accessible including screen reader use with an added focus on dyslexia users as well.
Dolphin have made the mobile apps available for free across ios and android and a £40 windows version which can be tried out using free 30 day trial before purchase.
The interface
Upon opening the app, the user is presented with a simple but well thought out layout with just the right amount of controls to not be too overpowering.
This continues through the app, keeping with a repetition type of approach so that users become very familiar with the layouts of different screens.
The continuous side menu is also a nice addition allowing users to get back to a familiar screen at any given time.
The interface does also adapt to some device specific accessibility features, smart invert is successful whereas, text sizing is ignored.
With full support for screen readers and the focus on the book content, the interface supplies a lot for the user to choose from.
Features
The app comes with a lot of features for reading a book, listed below are a description of these.
Easily accessible libraries and newspapers: The app allows easy access to their supported libraries with a simple sign-in page for each, libraries that you do not use can also be easily turned off so navigating through the list only contains the ones you are subscribed to.
Newspapers are also available through EasyReader, once logged in to your subscription, newspapers are shown when available, so they are ready and waiting for you when opening the app.
Full playback controls: The app provides a large play button, previous and forward buttons for navigation.
These buttons can be changed using the navigation settings to skip by 15seconds, book default, headings and even be more granular to be just heading1 only or heading 1 and 2.
Book navigation: Books can be navigated not only with the playback controls, users can dive deeply into any book using the book navigation page which allows the user to view all book headings and bookmarks set by the user.
Bookmarking: The app allows both written and voice note bookmarking, storing these into their own section within the book navigation page so they can be easily accessed whenever you need.
Each bookmark can be selected or listened too, when activated the user is taken to that part of the book with an audible alert to notify them they have arrived at that point within the book.
Voice and sound settings: Users are given the ability to change the reading voice along with adjustments such as rate of speech, pitch, volume and pause length, included in this section is a test button to try out your adjustments as you change them.
Text settings: This is a section which has received a great deal of attention as the granular control is extensive.
Users have the option to change text size, font, margin, line and even letter spacing for easier viewing.
Furthermore, highlighting options are included which are for highlighting text while it is read, options include, text colour, background colour, sentence and word highlighting colour.
There is also a theme setting which includes set colours for easier customization.
Sleep timer: A nice feature is a built-in sleep timer which can be activated at any time while reading a book which will stop the book talking from 15mins through to 1 hour.
Full search: The app allows you to search through your collection of books downloaded or when reading a book, you can search the book with keywords or sentences to find a certain point within a book or simply to look for a chosen area of the book you are looking for.
Clipboard text: A very handy feature is the ability to bring in any text that has been saved to the devices clipboard, this allows articles on the web or text in emails to be copied and bought into the app to gain full playback and customization of the text within the app.
Online help guides: EasyReader includes a help section within it’s side menu to easily gain access to online how-to tutorials.
Offline reading: A very nice feature of EasyReader is the ability to read your previously downloaded books offline, enabling a true on the go experience, you will need an internet connection to browse libraries and access the online how-to tutorials.
Send your books to EsyReader: EasyReader allows importing of your own locally stored eNooks, ePub or Daisy 1 and 2 books, plain text documents can also be imported.
Importing from online sources such as Dropbox is the easiest method for mobile devices, please note though, your files will not be able to be imported to EasyReader if they contain any DRM restrictions such as those found on iTunes or Amazon books.
Libraries
The app at its core is a kind of box where you can store all your books, for easy access, no matter the time or place, but this starts to become a problem when viewing the available libraries that a user can subscribe to.
Because the app is appealing to a worldwide audience at present it has about 22 different libraries that can be accessed.
In the UK this covers RNIB Bookshare, an educational resource for schools, colleges and universities, RNIB OverDrive, an online library of audiobooks offered through RNIB’s library subscription, Project Guttenburg, an open source directory and ePub Books, another open source directory.
RNIB OverDrive is the best new addition so far, this has opened a very large selection of audio books for users and with RNIB’s easy sign up process, Users can simply pick up the phone and be helped through the registration.
Syncing across your devices is a feature coming soon which will allow for a really better synchronized cross platform experience, at present each device holds its own downloaded content.
My thoughts so far
The EasyReader app developed by Dolphin has been a mixed experience for me so far, on one hand I can commend Dolphin on the truly amazing array of features that this free book reader gives the user, both in the simplified accessible interface to the good sounding voice synthesizer to the fully customizable display controls which are available whilst a user is reading a book.
But on the other hand, while these features are its plus points, the app does leave me wanting more, especially when I focus on the available libraries section.
Other offerings
The amount of choice these days when talking about digital books is vast, if you have the funds to subscribe to Audible, Audiobooks or use iTunes, you may see more up to date content which appeals more to you today from more familiar authors.
Unfortunately, due to DRM (digital rights management), EasyReader is unable to allow connections at present to these online books.
Conclusion
EasyReader is a helpful tool to get you started with audiobooks.
As the service expands, especially within the UK, this will no doubt be a go-to app of choice for anyone with print or visual needs to access their digital books, for now though, it is one to keep and use its features to your advantage, such as the clipboard paste, text enlargement abilities and of course to read some great books through RNIB’s Overdrive service or some classics, which are available in eBook format through the free libraries.
Be sure to download at iTunes at the link below,
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/dolphin-easyreader/id1161662515?mt=8 or through the app store by searching ‘Dolphin EasyReader’.
Full details can be found on Dolphin, visit EasyReader iOS & Android product page.
