Shortform Daily Book Summaries

I recently came across Shortform while looking for a practical book summary app. Eventually, after comparing with other providers on the market, I've decided to subscribe to Shortform as it appears to offer the most comprehensive summary. This is a review from my experience of using this app in less than a day. I've found many popular books with great summaries which made me happy. Exploring more and more of the functionalities within the app like sharing to Readwise, clicking on the links within summary page that led me to external articles, revisiting my highlights through top-right menu, etc., I've found that while performing these actions, the app can become slow and often unresponsive. This happened too many times it is frustrating. I'm frustrated because you have good content but your platform is failing. Good content is nothing without functioning platform. I'm not talking about UX design here. I'm talking about performance.

1. When reviewing the highlight pages it would be better for them to be listed in order of where they appear in the book - the first highlight should be from page 1, the second from page 2, etc., rather than in order of the date you made the highlight. 2. When I’m on the highlight summary page and click “goto highlight” it does not take me to the highlight. What am I doing wrong?

Good product. I reluctantly purchased after signing up for a free trial and immediately canceling so I would not forget and get charged, only to find out my free trial was cancelled too. I messaged support and they said to get a second trial with a different email address. When I purchased I signed up with a promo code and was billed for that amount + the full amount without the promo. They said they would refund the difference. Love the summaries, disgusted by the company. Would not recommend. Find any excuse you can to not put your credit card number in.

The very first summary I tried, Eichmann in Jerusalem, was laughably bad. First off, the AI generated voice actor pronounced Eichmann “eech-men.” They literally did not do one single quality pass before publishing this monstrosity. And I’m suspicious that the content itself is AI generated. How else can you explain the inclusion, in the first 3 minutes of audio, of former Iranian president Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denying propaganda claims that Zionist Jews were equally responsible for the Holocaust? Hannah Arendt is rolling in her grave and Shortform ought to be ashamed of itself.

They have not gotten back to me so I had to file. I will update here accordingly.

I signed up for monthly and was charged $197 for an annual membership. I sent two emails through the app (no phone #) and never received a response. So, I cancelled my membership all together and will dispute the charge with my bank. Disappointing there is zero customer service to assist with these issues.

I had enjoyed Shortform for about a year but was not using it enough to justify the roughly $200/year cost. When I went to cancel in the application I made a mistake and accidentally resubscribed. I realized my mistake and immediately (within a few minutes) emailed the company to ask for a refund. They denied my request on the grounds that since I confirmed the renewal they didn’t have to provide a refund. To be clear, I realize that I made the mistake and that they are within the rights to refuse the refund. However, this is a terrible business practice and one that I wanted others to know about. I will never use Shortform again because of how they acted in this situation. The content is wonderful but the poor quality of customer service far outweighs the quality of content.

In theory, the service should be great. In practice you can get the same information from a quick YouTube video online for free, then decide whether you should read the whole book or not. I purchased the service and barely used it the first month. I felt OK about it though. I gave the service a try and they did try to give me a service. I forgot to cancel the auto renewal and the app renewed me a year later. The same day I reached out to get it canceled, shocker, they would not reverse the charge. Basically forced me to pay for another year of a service that I literally never use. Thanks Shortform for stealing my money! I doubt they stick around with customer service like this.

Great product, but the following should be improved - highlighting does not work properly - bookmarking should be improved and synchronized across devices. i often lose my progress. - add ability to create multiple lists - finished books should not show in my lists if i choose too. - books finished should also show in book master list. - sync audio progress with text progress. i want to see in the text how far i have listened or where i am, so i can highlight as necessary. - app freezes sometimes when i click on a link to another book in a summary. white blank page shows up

As other reviews have pointed out, there are various annoying bugs and UX issues going on. The highlighting menu often disappears when selecting text, or a pop up menu will freeze the page and you have to restart the app. Very annoying things like that. The reading and content itself is top notch.