Shortform Daily Book Summaries 12+

It’s a good app and the summaries are great. A couple of things that would really make a difference:
- Offline reading mode (ie being able to download and read a summary when offline)
- The listening feature is good but I use it in conjunction with just reading the summary. It would be good for both to remember where you are up to.

Firstly, the content is superb I’ve tried numerous summary apps and Shortform is by far the best content.

The not so good, the app. It’s very slow to respond difficult to find content I’ve already read, doesn’t remember the exact place I was at, doesn’t work offline so useless for flights and it seems to suffer for a number of layout bugs, particularly if you rotate or wake the device up (iPad mini 6 or iPhone 14 pro max) which means force restarting the app, at which point you hit the first issues I mentioned where it’s a pain getting back to where you were. I also run the iOS app on my Mac (as it’s apple silicon) no rotation issue here (obviously) but it regularly presents a blank screen. One other big issue. I’ve read a lot of books on Shortform and sometimes I want to
Find a particular excerpt. There is no search within the content I’ve read or within a book at all.. this is also a pain but all of these problems can be solved by the user

My solution ( and that of two colleagues who also use Shortform ) we download the pdf and put them in Apple Books which solves all of the problems above. It does beg the question as to why they don’t just have a pdf subscription service. I’ll repeat though, the content is superb wouldn’t be without it.

So I figured I’d give this a go and signed up to their free trial (you’re required to put in a credit card number but it won’t be charged if you cancel within the trial period).

I cancelled at the end of my trial period, but still got charged a monthly fee. I figured that maybe I’d missed something or had been a bit too late so would take the hit, read a few more book summaries ... but I wasn’t willing to pay for another month, so I cancelled my subscription right there and then to make sure i wasn’t charged for another month.

Imagine my surprise when, having paid for a full month, I’m locked out the day that I cancel my subscription (basically two days into an expensive monthly cost!)

Having contacted support, I’m told that while they fully understand why I would “expect” to have access to the month I’ve already paid for, their billing system is currently set up to freeze people out as soon as they unsubscribe. The only way to get around this is to subscribe for another month (for a lower cost proportionate to how much time I had on my previous subscription).

Basically I’m being asked to pay more money just to cancel my subscription. That is wrong in every sense. I’ve paid for something and I’m not getting it.

As far as I’m concerned this just feels like some kind of massive scam and I’m amazed they’re allowed on the App Store.

Avoid at all costs.