Outread: Finally a Speed Reading App That Understands Speed Reading
Just yesterday I saw a new speed reading app popping in my news feed: Outread. I was intrigued, because I like to train my speed reading sometimes, but the apps that exist are either bad or old.
My previous favourite was QuickReader. QuickReader does a really great job for speed reading training. It lets a user customize not only speed, but also stops per line, which is important. If you want to learn how to read faster, you need to control your eyes better. To get control of the eyes, train how often they stop per line to take new words in.
The app is old and outdated though. It doesn’t integrate with Instapaper and its look needs a serious redesign.
Then some time last year Velocity was released. A really good looking speed reading app, but it only let’s you speed read by showing text on one specific spot on the screen. There’s no need to move the eye. So once a user who was trained with Velocity reads somewhere else, their reading slows down to their previous level, because their fixations haven’t been trained.
Enter Outread. Outread has a well designed interface, integrates with Instapaper, and it trains fixations. From a brief test I am very impressed by the app. I can set wpm (words per minute) as well as, what they call, a marker size. This marker is basically the measure for how many fixations per line the app will create.
Right now an iPad version is missing. I do most of my reading there. They have announced an iPad version though. According to a tweet, the app is going to be Universal.
Obviously the app is insanely expensive at $2.99, but I hope you still give the app a whirl.