Bookshelf

Name: Bookshelf
Rating: 4.7 (78094 reviews)
Author: VitalSource Technologies, Inc.

By: VitalSource Technologies, Inc.

Education

Features & Capabilities

Bookshelf offers a digital-first study experience by giving you offline access to VitalSource textbooks on your iPad or iPhone. Read and study anytime, anywhere with seamless offline support and device syncing.

Key features include customizable highlighters and notes, flashcards with text and images, Read Aloud, and personalized font, size, and background colors. Progress and work stay in sync across devices. Built with accessibility in mind and requiring a VitalSource Bookshelf account and iOS 17+.

User Growth & Download Statistics

App Education Books Accessibility

By:

VitalSource Technologies, Inc.

Rating:

4.70

(78,094) 57 new ratings

Version:

11.3.2 Last updated: 2026-03-17

Version code:

883437890

Creation date:

2010-09-15

Compatible devices:

Size:

185.34MB

URLs:

Website ,Privacy policy

Full description:

Source:

Apple Apps Store

Data ingested on:

2026-06-28

Compare stats and ranking:

Ranking

# 4,440 ▼ 19

Other rankings

#24 in education keyword 7 ▲ 5

For Developers

Monetize with App Pass Boost with Extension Booster

Contact the developer

Chrome-Stats does not own this Apple app. Please use these information below to contact the Apple app developer.

Developed by:

VitalSource Technologies, Inc.

Apple Apps Store

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookshelf/id389359495

Website:

https://www.vitalsource.com/bookshelf-features

User Reviews

Bookshelf offers strong textbook access and study tools (highlights, notes, search) but suffers from reliability and accessibility issues, including a robotic read-aloud, navigation glitches, flaky markup, an aging UI, and DRM limits that hinder annotation/export.

Pros

Highlighting and note-taking features are useful for studying.
The app is generally easy to use and user-friendly.
Users value easy access to textbooks (purchase/rent options) and reasonable pricing.
The app offers helpful study aids like search and flashcards as part of the feature set.

Cons

Text-to-speech voice is robotic and hard to understand.
Navigation is frequently buggy with pages jumping or incorrect locations when following links or using menus.
Markup/highlight functionality is slow, prone to crashes, and often loses progress.
UI feels outdated and not intuitive across some interactions.
DRM restrictions limit annotation/export options (no PDF view, can't export highlights).

Recent reviews

A little glitchy on some pages and not user-friendly for reading, but sufficient I guess

by Fu*****, 2026-06-16

I’m trying to read my calculus textbook but some formulas just don’t show up in the text! Trying to get help is a nightmare. How am I supposed to pass this class when I can’t even read the textbook because some text just refuses to show up? If I can email someone, that would be sweet.

by Ne*****, 2026-06-15

I use the app and pay for the ebooks specifically for the read aloud option and the robot voice is terrible. Is there really no other voice option? Hopefully they adjust that asap bc I've spent the $$$. On the website, vital source, there are other voice options, but not in the Bookshelf app apparently. Boo.