abhorrent app redesign ruins brilliant service
I’ve been a paid member of the service (for about 3-4 years) and find it extremely helpful and I love it, but the lates app redesign is an excellent example how unnecessary redesign can ruin otherwise great app. There was literally no need or sense in redesigning like that. Nothing, nothing has improved user experience in any way. Fonts are smaller, background is distracting, interface is messier, streak stats are tiny icon in the corner and then just a couple of weeks worth of tracking presented as weird calendar. Please stop your UI designers from ruining your service. It has one pure purpose, don’t mess with it.
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Love the redesign
Awesome job!
Everything now locked behind a paywall
The most recent update has been detrimental to the usability of this app locking ~95% of features behind an expensive subscription.
It is now minimum £70 a year just to be able to use the main previously free features such as syncing highlights from Kindle. You even have to pay to manually add notes by typing or photo scan. If you are not willing to cough up the money don’t bother with this app.
While the app is good for organising book notes, I will be deleting and moving to a free alternative as soon as I find one as it is just unaffordable to have yet another subscription.
If they just locked proper premium features behind a paywall as before it would have been understandable. But no, Mr greedy corporation locks the most basic functions of the app behind a paywall and completely ruin the app for previous free version users unless they pay.
Do better Readwise!
It is now minimum £70 a year just to be able to use the main previously free features such as syncing highlights from Kindle. You even have to pay to manually add notes by typing or photo scan. If you are not willing to cough up the money don’t bother with this app.
While the app is good for organising book notes, I will be deleting and moving to a free alternative as soon as I find one as it is just unaffordable to have yet another subscription.
If they just locked proper premium features behind a paywall as before it would have been understandable. But no, Mr greedy corporation locks the most basic functions of the app behind a paywall and completely ruin the app for previous free version users unless they pay.
Do better Readwise!
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Response from developer
To clarify, Readwise has always been a paid service after the 30-day free trial, so the recent update didn’t move previously free features behind a new paywall. We’re a small, bootstrapped team making ad-free reading software. You can read more about why we’ve chosen to keep Readwise paid here: https://blog.readwise.io/why-were-bootstrapping-readwise/. If you have any questions, reach us anytime at hello@readwise.io.
Love the 2.0 update
I’ve been using Readwise together with Readwise Reader for a while now, and it’s a brilliant combo for reading and actually reviewing what you’ve read. The 2.0 update has genuinely changed things for me. It’s the first time the app has felt like somewhere I want to spend time, rather than a chore I do to feel virtuous about my reading habits. Recommended, especially if you actually want to remember what you read.
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Finally, an update.
I have been subscribed to this app for years. It’s the best at what it does, but paying monthly for an app that was without significant updates for that long, and was really showing its age in annoying ways was more & more frustrating. Thankfully they are finally giving it a significant upgrade it is much better. I know the Reader app has more users, but here’s hoping this is a sign of frequent updates for the Readwise app as well. That is what got some of us into this ecosystem in the first place.
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