BeeLine Reader

I paid $5 for the app thinking I could at least read PDF’s…no, when you click to read a PDF you are asked to pay another $10! I reluctantly paid the $10 and still, it will not work! I’m very frustrated , as I was excited to be able to read more easily.

They charge you for the app, then 10$ to use the app, then that doesnt cover the web extensions which is 3$ a month. This is a cash grab someone is masquerading as enabling to people with disabilities. Disgusting.

Wish I would have listened to the other reviews. I purchased the app yesterday and it hasn’t been working, unless I choose to review the material online. I also tried sending them a message about the issue by filling out the “contact us” sheet on their website - that doesn’t work either.

So disappointed in beeline reader team. I paid the yearly extension cost, waited for years for an android app that never came. I finally got an ipad, and all that greets me is a buggy bare bones app from what feels like 2014. I laughed the other day because my review was still on your extension, excitedly saying I couldn’t wait for the never android app. This tech can change lives. But its behind a paywall before you can even try the darn thing. How are new people supposed to come try? There seems to be no updates from the team in the last few years. If they’re done trying to make money off this, I hope they release or open source this tech so other people and companies to try it. I can’t stress how much this has positively changed my life, but its distressing to see so little care put into this project. The 40 dollar uni package looks like a joke. The only reason this isn't one star is because the tech is still real and works, but everything else is garbage. I hope that changes, because I would love to use this tech with me as I age. I WISH I could recommend this to my friends, but i only do it for a few because how out of date and buggy everything is.

I felt compelled to write this review in the hope it might stimulate improvement. Great app… when it works. But my E-book reader no longer functions, and two messages to Support over the last several weeks have gone unanswered. What is the point of paying $$$ for a product that fails to deliver?

...the only useful feature is the color gradient added to each line. Otherwise, it's painful to use. If I'm reading a PDF and switch to a different app and don't switch back within a few seconds, the app loses track of what I was reading. Additionally, there's no way (or perhaps no obvious way) to save a PDF for future reference. So when I switch to Safari to look up a concept, for example, when I switch back into Beeline, I have to go through the rigamarole of searching all my PDFs and finding the one I was originally reading. Another quirk is that trying to scroll sometimes triggers the sidebar. The only "fix" is waiting a few seconds and then trying to scroll again. While I am happy to pay for useful apps, especially accessibility-related apps,$15 ($10 to be able to read PDFs, $5 for the app) is a lot for something that's this buggy. My experiences thus far have all been on an iPad, so I don't know if the iPhone version is this frustrating to use. I should have heeded earlier reviews and passed on this one because the efficiency gains provided by the colored lines are negated by the kludginess of everything else.

Im a university student with a slight case of ADD and this has helped me keep my eyes from darting around the page like I would normally do. I have used some virtual reading ruler applications on my other devices but this application is better than those apps because it sections off text so you can follow along better. I dont need to use my finger to follow what im reading because I have this app now.

Beeline reader is great for me. However, even excluding the issues with availability due to external limitations, the implementation leaves something to be desired. The UI is white with lines for options. There is no guide or settings, and you have to spend some time figuring out how it works - especially with the current iOS bug that means you need to restart to add anything new to the “share” list. I found this helpful tidbit in the pocket documentation. The pricing structure is great, much more reasonable than the subscription service I saw at one point. I’m really happy about this. I strongly suggest getting in touch with a UI/UX designer for iOS apps and work on that, since it’s the only major downside to the app that you can do anything about. (Most other complaints seem to be that it won’t work everywhere, which is unfortunately to be expected.) As it stands, this isn’t quite worth the money, but it’s still so useful for accessibility reasons that I paid it. I also suggest adding in a feature - paid or otherwise - to read files we add. Epub, html, docx, I thunk even just those would help a ton.

I primarily read on my iPad for class and we use a variety of PDFs and websites. I use GoodNotes currently to mark up the text and file them appropriately, so I’m not looking for this app to function in that way, but in other ways this app is archaic. I can’t take the color gradient PDFs or pages and put them into other apps to mark them up or save them as files on my iPad. I have to stay in the app that does only one thing... change colors... not worth the $15 I paid for the app and PDF reader. and maybe if the app looked nicer and not like 1965 Microsoft word, i wouldn’t mind reading in the app, but I mind very much. Definitely a rip off, worth .99 at most.

UPDATE: I got a response from the developers and apparently there is a restriction from Amazon on the Kindle iPhone app. —————————————————— I really enjoy using this for reading news articles on my phone. I wish the kindle compatibility was available on iPhone though. I don’t understand why it is only available on iPad. I would even pay the “premium content” fee if I could use it on kindle on my iPhone.