Papers by ReadCube 17+

Major love given to this app recently and am happy to amend my previous review. All of the UX issue I previously stated have been fixed and this feels more inline with the web and desktop app (although it would be super useful to have the annotation functionality of the web app working on mobile browsers. Finding the perfect reference manager is a bit of a white whale. For me Papers is still the best. I’d still prefer a native Mac app instead of a wrapped web app but I can live with it. Awesome work on this update.

Amended review (previously 2 stars)

If this app is intended to convince people to buy into the subscription model of ReadCube from Papers it need a complete UX overhaul. It’s fairly obvious this app gets little attention and there are some real experience issues. All elements are far too small for a modern mobile screen. The library is accessed from an old fashioned sidebar drawer with a tiny drag tab by way of a swipe gesture. The problem is that the swipe gesture is also used for all the element inside and outside of the drawer. A swipe to close the drawer I end up editing a folder in my library. A swipe when the drawer is closed and you activate the multi-select. Select one of these items and I’m a small finger movement from deleting an item. I want to like this as at some point Papers3 will become legacy but as a professional UX designer I am worried at how poorly thought out this app is.

Needs options for direct quotes e.g. being able to put the page number

Coming from the Papers3 App for iOS, it seems here they have gone for simplicity. Some menu items are unresponsive, and not so user friendly. It’s a shame because it excels on the viewing documents and editing, with very fast syncing times between devices via their cloud service. I’m very pleased with that, because let’s face it, that’s what this app is for.

However, I wish that the developers put a bit more thought on the functionality of app, with editing categories/keywords, a quick download all papers, hide the side menu on iPad versions, see icons instead of just titles.

The layout of this app I guarantee will not please many users of Papers3, and I don’t think they are going to do well with new users, the app requires a subscription and therefore a specific set of users will download it. For me at least, I am hoping that the developers can think of a way to integrate the new features with an interface that we are familiar.