Readwise is building its own reading app

Software
21

Over the last 6 months or so it has completely replaced all other read-it-later apps for me, with the (sort of) exception of GoodLinks. I still use GoodLinks for non-reading content like videos, recipes, documentation, etc.

It won me over solely by having (IMO) the best parsing engine + the best support for paywalled content (if your browser can see it, the extension will save it properly***)

Those two things, combined with the community and support (I’ve had many bugs fixed quickly, and many feature requests considered and implemented) make it a no-brainer for me.

The highlighting is also best-in-class from what I’ve seen, but I don’t use that as much as I could. I’m not worried about future pricing; for how much value I get out of it and how much I use it, I’d have no problem paying any (at least somewhat reasonable) price.

***In Firefox and Chromium based browsers now, in Safari soon.

22

I am impressed with the web app, the key board shortcuts are so handy. Also the fact that it is not only a read-it-later service but also an ebook reader. Still discovering all the great features

23

Agreed! I think it is a ways off from being my dedicated epub reader, but it will be nice to see when and if it does!

24

It’s great to see such positive feedback @fuzzygel and @thickweb! I did sign up for the beta but haven’t been contacted. I’m excited to try out the new app, perhaps when/if it hits open beta.

25

Hey Joe - if you’re a paid Readwise user feel free to DM me your email address and I should be able to get you in. They are only accepting paying Readwise users at this point.

1 Like
26

I haven’t received my invite yet but this video from Nicole van der Hoeven certainly has me interested.

2 Likes
27

This is really encouraging to read, I’ve been on the waiting list for quite a while — I’m hopeful it will alleviate my problems getting notes and highlights from PDFs properly into Readwise.

Does anyone know when it will be released to the general public?

1 Like
28

I’m glad to hear the Readwise reader app is so good.

I signed up for the beta long ago, but haven’t gotten an invite yet.

I already use Readwise extensively for collecting highlights; it’ll be great to get her my feeds there, too.

1 Like
29

I have a paid readwise account but haven’t been accepted to the beta. Would anyone with access be willing to invite me? It looks super exciting.

30

email dan@readwise.com, he’s one of the cofounders and set you up.

31

I cannot remember where I heard that but I think they are soon ready for public beta. They used to require 1:1 onboarding for private beta and now moved to self onboarding recently. This shows how careful they are on making sure that the right user experience is managed. I provided a couple of feedbacks via the app and Dan the co-founder responded even during the weekend. I am very impressed with the team

1 Like
32

I think I’m going to give it a go. I’ve resisted Readwise so far because I’ve not necessarily had an issue pulling my various sources to DevonThink, but I still use Pocket and then manually save any interesting webpages to DevonThink and I think Readwise could improve things here.

1 Like
33

OK for others to DM you as well? I’m a paying user, and signed up for the beta almost as soon as it was announced — but no love yet.

34

Ditto to this request @thickweb? :blush:

35

Likewise @thickweb. Thanks.

36

Now that it’s out I’m willing to share my info.

As everyone here knows I am extremely cloud adverse. :grin:

The new Reader app from Readwise has actually gotten me to convert to using it as my primary e-book reader for books I intend to annotate (highlights and notes) IN SPITE of requiring that I keep a copy of those boooks and my annotations in the cloud.

The seemless interface to get those notes into my Obsidian system is worth it.

As I have mentioned numerous time many of my ebooks are NOT from Amazon so while I can read the .MOBI files in the standard Kindle app I cannot easily get my annotations out. I use my iPad to read and there isn’t a way to easily get annotations out of a non-Amazon book and into Obsidian from the iPad OS Kindle App.

The Reader app requires that you import the books into it in EPUB format. I have thousands of ebooks in MOBI and other Amazon formats. So the first task was to convert them into EPUBS or go get the EPUB versions. I used Calibre to do that conversion. My initial testing only has a part of my library but I have imported 1300 book into the readwise reader app. There were some glitches and I found that importing in groups of about 100 books seems to work better.

I set up the readwise offical Obsidian plugin and that is working very well to move the annotations over to my system.

I also downloaded the iPadOS app and do all my reading and annotations in it just like I was in the Kindle app.

Lots of things wok great, the sync between Obsidian and Readwise works well. I get nice notes into my Obsidian vault in the place I want them to be and formatted well.

A few things are not working well for me, I do not like the continuous scroll when reading books I want an option to jump a page at a time. OTOH continous scroll does mean that if I want to highlight a segment that crosses a page boundary I can easily do that and that is also very useful. That’s why I want the paging to ba an option that can easily be clicked on and off.

I wish I had more than a single highlight color.

Converting books is possible but not ideal. Once Amazon moves entirely to EPUB files I anticipate that will be easier.

I also really want a way for me to edit my annotation files in Obsidian and then if I go to read the book again see the new info in the app. I’ve asked for that as a feature but not heard if it will be considered or not.

I still use the Kindle app to read samples and decide whether to add those books to my kindle wish list.

I have never used a read-it-later service but I have been testing using this app to clip web pages for annotation and reading later.

So far that is working much better than expected. I am getting clean files with the pictures intact and no or very little junk. I can annotate them and the highlights and annotations also get sent to Obsidian.

I cannot download the original file they creat so the data are still on their system but I have asked for a way to download it for offline storage.

I have provided tons of feedback and I get a response nearly every time. I believe they are really listening to the info I am providing.

6 Likes
37

That was my experience too. Then I had longer detailed email discussion of my exact workflow, how I wante dthe reuested feature to work and why I felt it was important with some other potential workflows. We went back and forth about what i really wanted and I tried some things and reported back, I was pleased with timeliness of the responses and the willingness to listen to a wrokflow they didn’t roiginally consider as critical.

1 Like
38

I really appreciated the Readwise team reaching out in 2020 during the height of the pandemic. I tried the product at that time but cancelled for other reasons and they were offering to help users experiencing financial hardship.

The reason I cancelled was because the connections the Readwise app was making back to Facebook and elsewhere. Readwise isn’t cheap. Why should an app I pay for be sharing details about what I’m reading and writing with Facebook? Never going back, as much as I like resurfacing my old highlights…

39

do you know whether this is still happening? Also , do you mind sharing where you got this information. I googled it but could not find any mention of this

40

I’ve moved on so I’m not sure if it’s still happening. I checked myself at the time. I did check their privacy policy not too long ago and don’t remember it being too stringent. If I had to guess, it’s still happening. Should be pretty easy to check from the web.