Spdr - Speed Reading Reviews

by NoodlyAppendage

I’ve used several different similar readers. This one would be my favorite if it actually worked as advertised. But alas, though the description indicates that ePub is supported, every ePub I’ve tried to read causes Spdr the say “loading” forever. It also crashes frequently. Too bad. I was hoping this would be the best. Instead it’s just another mediocre app. Other apps with similar technology work better than this one. The only reason to use Spdr is because it works with Apple Watch. Else there are better options and don’t expect to be able to read ePub on there.

Updated to say that customer support, even for a premium user, is nonexistent.

by DarcyIncarnate

When I bought Spdr, I was expecting more out of the Apple Watch features when in reality, the application is very underwhelming. Features that let you switch between what you were reading, and fixing basic bugs would definitely make this a 5 star app, but unfortunately, you have to switch what your reading on Spdr on your phone, you cannot acsess your library on the watch, and I’ve been using it for five minutes and it’s already glitching out. The main glitch is that even when I’m not tapping it, it has been continually playing, and while it’s in this state of playing non stop, it won’t let me adjust the speed. Spdr itself is very useful in an iPhone but if these changes could be made to the Apple Watch app, this would be so much more worth the money.

by Dapperapper

After purchasing the pro version of Spdr to enable all features I can only say Spdr, while showing promise, simply does not work. It does not work with Apple News at all! I have tried multiple articles.

It cannot handle large content such as an ebook in PDF format. Does not work well with Wikipedia as it will only load the first section. It cannot differentiate between the text of an article and advertisement links, so as you are reading you have to sift through which is what.

So I am sorely disappointed and am unfortunately out $10 for the effort. I mainly wanted Spdr so I could digest news articles and Wikipedia content faster. I haven’t been able to do either. The only way I can read an Apple News article is to open it in Safari then copy the url to this app, and it’s still a bunch of gibberish. I’ve also tried content from other news apps, (AP, Mail, The Guardian, Reuter’s) with the same results. Most online news content contains pictures, videos, links to other articles, and advertising which Spdr cannot distinguish.

So if you think Spdr looks good, think otherwise.

by Cool Beans27484838363

I am a very slow reader and usually do not very helpful things to help me understand what I was reading. As an honor English student I would think that Spdr would help me, but the use of the camera renders useless. It can barely pick up an entire paragraph without making errors, making the user have to read the text in the book and correct it, making the process slower. What’s even worse is that to be able to use the camera feature, the user has to buy premium. If they don’t do that then they will have to type out everything in their book making them actually read the story, taking up even more time. I would not recommend Spdr.

by OttoMattic99

I like Spdr. As someone with dyslexia Spdr is really useful for me and I would absolutely give it more stars if I could actually use it to read more than a few hundred words before it stops everything and congratulates me. Then I have the option of starting at the beginning of what I was reading, read something else or share that I am using Spdr . Why can’t I just keep reading? Much of what I read is longer than the instructions to ramen noodles but that’s the length of text Spdr seems to want to keep to. Let me choose when I am done this app and I’ll use you a bunch. I thought paying the $1.99 would remove what I see as a glitch, but nope.

by Poweruser 78888

I would suggest adding bookmarks so I can read multiple books at once and continue each book where I left off. Additionally, the software is buggy when opening and closing Spdr randomly the words will start going before I press play.

Another feature would be to limit word length. I would automatically separate anything larger that a user selected length into 2 flashes. There are times when a website will appear as a massive string because there is no space. Another bug is 2 words with an em dash will show as one super long word which is super hard to read.

by Dr. L.

I just purchased Spdr and it doesn’t seem to function as expected. I’m trying to download an article from the Washington Post app, and it never loads. Also, no matter what color I select, the color never appears in the flashing word. My ideal work process would look something like this. Open Washington Post app. Browse for articles I want to read. Click the Share extension to save the article to Spd. Have the article load and get saved in Spd in the background so I can continue to browse and save articles to Spd. As it is now, it appears that sharing an article to Spd immediately opens Spd where I have to wait for it to load and then save it before going back to the WP app to repeat this process over and over. Spdr has great potential, so I’m really hoping these issues can be resolved.

by Feedback Feedbag

I thought Spdr was pretty nifty when I downloaded it. Was enjoying my time with the free experience, so I figured I’d upgrade to full. I somewhat regret that decision. The export feature for Medium, WaPo, and other articles doesn’t seem to work, and either results in an empty text body or an app crash. Loading ebooks in is also out of the question. I sat waiting for some portion of Harry Potter to become available for a test run, but I had to stop for fear the loading spinner would outlast my phone’s battery.

Advice to the developers: please implement more clear use case definitions, batch load articles/text so we can read while the rest loads, and introduce some more insightful feedback on how much has loaded.

by Miaklw

Spdr seems like I could really be good.
I’ll start with design.
UI: a bit cluttered for my liking but passable.
As opposed to every option having it’s on icon
Perhaps you could have categories
Such as
- alignment
- speed
- import
- etc
I would love to review the rest of the functionality of Spdr,
However as soon as I finished the tutorial and earned my free session ( by the way the user should definitely have the option to skip that tutorial )
I tried to read my first book on Spdr and it proceeded to crash immediately.

Device: IPhone 11 Pro

Steps to reproduce
1) download app
2) watch the forced tutorial
3) choose “skip” when asked to buy pro
4) click the import file
4a) I chose a EPUB file
5) click the furthest alignment option on the right
6) proceed to lose your free session because Spdr crashes

If you need more specific details let me know
also please add a skip button for the tutorial.
Your ui is good enough that explaining literally every icon is unwarranted

by Aminick618

The interface is nice and clean, but definitely space for improvement to compete with apps like outread.
Spdr does a very good job on speed reading, however I really wished there can be a way to quickly switch between full text and speed reading mode since it’s nice to go back to regular text mode and skim over different contexts. Right now it’s not even possible to preview text if it’s too long. (most books will be too long for Spdr)

by 01emankcin10

This is a good app. I especially like that it is a one time fee as opposed to a subscription. One feature I would really like to see that I don’t, the option to increase the amount of words on the screen at a time. It currently works by flashing a single word at a time, I would like to be able to increase that as I get faster to better emulate what it’s actually like to quickly read something. It definitely works in its current iteration but this would be a useful improvement.

by Joshua D.

I was instantly sold on Spdr/tool when I completed the introduction tutorial. Spdr is genius in my opinion. I was reading lightning fast, 300 words a minute and still retaining the information. This is so darn cool.

Thank you for this brilliant application but also, most especially for selling Spdr ethically with a one-time purchase price and no subscription garbage. I cannot tell you how grateful and thankful that I am to you for being a rad developer and not ruining your app with a subscription.

I'm always more inclined to buy any application or video game if there is no subscription plan attached to them. So, again, I commend you and thank you for being an upstanding developer and for the amazing work that I believe you did with this groundbreaking app.

Oh, and also, I just love that, this app, will allow me to import .epub book files. That makes Spdr even more worth the asking price in my opinion. I have tons of public domain .epub books that I've been meaning to tackle for forever now and I think using this app will be the absolute best and most efficient way to read them all. So, thank you for that awesome option as well, I'm so excited to finally read Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Agatha Christie, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Bram Stoker and so many more with this program 👏🏻😁👍🏻.

Thank you sincerely for this program and the ethical way you chose to sell it. Developers like you are a rare breed today in my opinion.

by Flyaway178

I was doubtful at first about whether Spdr would help me but I’ve realized that it does. It’s really easy to set up and control and I’ve been happy with the free trail so far :). If you have trouble focusing on reading or are really slow I HIGHLY recommend that you get his app. I’ve been reading very boring books, most recently about Human Rights :/ , I tried out the camera mode and it really helped!

Developer Recommendation:
I looked at other apps such as Focus. One interesting feature they have are two lines on going across the screen which helps you focus. Another thing they have is they make one of the letters in the word red so you can focus on that. I think it would be cool if you made this a toggle feature. Another idea I have is something that I don’t expect you to do but it may help people remember things. Neuroscience found that when you take information from two senses you are more likely to remember it later on. This is why it’s helpful to read something out loud. Using that logic it may be really cool if there was a read along versions.

Keep up the good work.

by Frustrat€d

Update: After the recent update it has worked just fine!

Got Spdr a while ago and have enjoyed it enough to get the premium version. App on my phone works fine but the iPad version crashes by pushing most any button. I have reinstalled Spdr multiple times and reset the iPad, which is up to date. Even with the premium version it still says I cannot perform functions like using the share button to send an article straight to Spdr . I also couldn't find any link to contact customer support of any kind. Would really like Spdr if it were to actually work on the device I would like to use it on.

by PrivateKamo

Very useful app! Not only am I reading much faster than I was before, but I’m more motivated to read things that I’ve been putting off for a while. It makes reading a lot easier. The only feedback I can give for now is that sometimes the flow will stop on one word suddenly, and I have remove my finger and touch it again for it to keep going. Other than that Spdr is amazing! I’ll be sure to report any problems or bugs that I find. Keep it up!