The books worth reading, finished in the time you actually have.
Knowingo rebuilds a book into parts of about six minutes. You pick 20 minutes or 45, you read it as one continuous piece, and it waits for you on a warm paper surface built for reading rather than for scrolling.
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What a moat actually is
A moat is not a good product. A good product invites company. A moat is the reason a competitor who copies the product still loses money doing it.
Buffett spent 40 years asking one question of every business he bought, and it was never how good the product is.
The one by your bed stopped at page 38.
You meant it when you bought it. Then came the late nights, the crowded train, the ten minutes before sleep. The book did not become less worth reading. The way it asks to be read just stopped fitting your week.
So we did not shorten what a book is worth. We changed the shape it arrives in.
Two lengths, two levels of language. You choose both, book by book.
Some evenings you have 20 minutes. Some Sundays you have 45. Some books you want in the author's own vocabulary, and some you would rather have in plainer words. Those are two separate questions, and Knowingo remembers your answer for every book.
| Original | Simplified | |
|---|---|---|
| 20 minutesSix parts, roughly | The short read in the author's own vocabulary. The first part of this version is free in every published book. | The same short read in plainer words. The sentences get easier and nothing important leaves. |
| 45 minutesThe full argument | Every step the author builds, with the examples that make each one land. | The long read in plainer words. Same facts, same order, gentler sentences. |
Simplified lowers vocabulary and sentence difficulty. It never shortens the content and it never drops a fact.
About six minutes a part. A part is a real place to stop.
A part ends where a thought ends, so putting the phone down does not cost you the thread. Reach the end of one and it completes itself, quietly, and your XP goes up. Nothing arrives to congratulate you at length.
Marco keeps count. He shows you where you actually are, whether that is not started, part way, or finished. He is never on screen only to decorate it.
We do not dare change one of the author's numbers.
Every summary passes a machine check before a reader can open it. This is the part that competitors promise in marketing copy. Here it is a gate, and a draft that fails it does not reach you.
- Every figure is checked. If the book says 25 percent, the summary says 25 percent, in digits. A draft that rounds it or writes it in words does not publish.
- The author's arithmetic stays as it is. When the numbers in a book do not add up, that is frequently the author's actual point, so we leave it standing rather than tidy it away.
- Nobody is impersonated. Summaries are written in neutral third person, never in a voice pretending to be the author.
- Failing drafts go back, not out. Publishing is a separate deliberate step, and a draft still marked for review cannot take it.
Built to be pleasant, not merely functional.
This is the part most summary apps treat as a container. For us it is the product.
Scroll it or turn it
Read the whole thing as one continuous piece, or turn it page by page with a light paper sound. The sound stays off until you ask for it.
Five sizes, two leadings
The reader chooses the size, never the typeface, because the typeface is doing a job. Serif carries the words, a rounded face carries the buttons.
Tap to keep a sentence
Tap any block to highlight it. Your highlights and your position are waiting where you left them next time you open the book.
Figures in their place
Charts and pictures sit in the order the book put them, with their captions, rather than collected into a gallery at the end.
Warm paper, not white
A warm ground and a warm near black. A bright white page at night is tiring, and this is a product for people who are already tired.
Nothing moves while you read
Motion is restrained everywhere and it stops completely inside the reader. Reduce Motion turns off whatever is left.
The language of the app and the language of the books are different questions.
You may want the interface in Chinese and the books in English, because that is exactly how you are trying to improve. Knowingo keeps the two settings apart, and changing one never quietly changes the other.
You can also filter the library by language for one session, to see what is there, without touching the preference you saved.
Read the first part of any book, free.
Not a sample paragraph and not a teaser. The real first part of the real 20 minute version, in every published book. Premium opens the rest.
Free
After you sign in with Apple.
- Browse every published book in your book language
- Read the first part of any 20 minute version
- Keep your progress, your highlights and your XP
Premium
Monthly or yearly, from the App Store.
- Every part of every published book
- Both lengths, 20 minutes and 45
- Both levels, original and simplified
- Cancel any time in your Apple account
Prices come from the App Store and appear in the app at the moment you look, so there is no number printed here that could be out of date or wrong for your country.
It arrives on iPhone soon.
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