Books are a great source of information. A lot of knowledge is instilled in them and reading them is never a bad idea. Still, not everyone has the time to read books, or at least not as much as one would want to. There are so many out there and we often have to choose what to read due to time constraints. That’s where the Headway app comes in.
Get 15-minute book summaries with the Headway app
Headway is a highly-rated book summary platform that can pull out key insights from a book and lay them out for you in 15-minute summaries. That way you can still experience the books you don’t have time to read. The Headway app is not limited to a specific genre or anything like that. In the app, you can find a summary of basically any non-fiction book, regardless of whether you’re looking for personal growth, to advance your career, or simply want to know more about a specific book without reading it.
This is, in fact, the world’s most downloaded book summary application. It sits at over 50 million downloads, and it’s a multi-platform application. You can grab it from either the Google Play Store, or from the Apple App Store. If you’d prefer to access it via your desktop PC, that’s also an option, as you can do it via your Internet browser.
Gamified challenges are also a part of the offering, as are audio summaries
Headway is not just your simple summary app, though, not at all. This application does offer some extra functionality that many of you will appreciate. It offers daily insights, gamified challenges, and a fun approach to learning. It covers a wide range of topics such as Productivity, Happiness, Self-Growth, Business & Career, Leadership, Money & Investments, Love & Sex, Health, and more. If you don’t have time for books or struggle with long-form learning, this is the app for you.
The ease of use is one of this app’s main selling points. You can fire up the Headway app while you’re commuting, standing in line, or doing stuff around the house. Grab your 15-minute summary in either text or audio format, and start learning. It’s immensely simple. The app also offers curated collections and tailored recommendations for a personalized approach to learning. It can easily adapt to your needs. The more you use it, the better that aspect will be, of course.
Setting up the app is an interesting, personal experience
It also has a unique app setup, actually, at least for an app of this kind. Upon first setup, you’ll be asked your age, gender, and your goals. You’ll be able to select up to 3 goals in order to help the app with the personalization factor. You can choose between Win at work, Have more money, Be productive, Build strong family, Have a healthy body, Love & be loved, Be happy, and Improve social life. Once again, you’re limited to three of these. Once you select them, the app will immediately narrow down its suggestions to a specific number of books from its database. Upon my elections, 621 of them were picked.
You can choose in which areas you’d like to improve
After that, the app will ask you to select areas in which you’d like to improve. You can choose between Motivation, Leadership, Management, Planning, Emotions, Parenting, Nutrition, Habits, Mindset, Intimacy, and more. You can tap once to select some of these and tap twice in order to prioritize something. All that will help the app adapt to you even more.
Headway will also ask you how much time you have to spend on consuming content in a day. 5, 10, 15, and 20-minute options are available. If you choose the 20-minute option, the app basically tells you that you can consume summaries of 51 books in that time frame. The less time you select, the less time you will have for content, naturally.
Headway also allows you to commit to various learning streaks
On top of everything, you can even commit to various learning streaks. For example, you can commit to a 50-day streak in which you plan to consume content and improve yourself for 50 straight days. Headway will do its best to help you on that path, of course. It even allows you to select what is the best time for you to consume content. Whether be it before your morning coffee, during a commute, or right before you go to bed.
The last step in order to finish the setup is for you to choose what books you’re interested in, out of the ones on offer (based on the options you chose beforehand). You need to select at least three books out of the ones on offer, and chances are you’ll have plenty to choose from. So simply choose some in order to give the app a better idea of what you’re interested in.
Some additional questions will pop up during the personalization process
Once you wrap all that up, the app will start personalizing your experience. During it, you’ll be asked some additional questions, while the setup is rolling. For example, are you inclined to finish what you start? Do you give up easily? And so on. It all depends on what your selections were, and what books you chose. Following that, your free trial can begin!
There are quite a few features packed into the app, including offline access
We’ve already mentioned Headway’s most important features, such as 15-minute book summaries, whether you prefer reading or listening. However, this app has some additional features worth noting. It offers daily microlearning sessions and interactive widgets to encourage consistency. Headway also has learning streaks and progress tracking to help you stay on course. It basically rewards you for your dedication to learning. On top of all that, you do get curated book collections tailored to your interests and goals.
That’s not all, though. Headway also offers a spaced repetition feature and allows you to turn highlights into interactive flashcards to help memorize the key takeaways. That way you can make learning even more engaging. There are also gamified elements like trophies and challenges, so you can even get a sense of accomplishment on top of everything else. Headway even allows you to download summaries for offline access, in case you’re traveling, or are going somewhere where you won’t have an Internet connection.
Headway makes sure that you get professional audio summaries
When it comes to the aforementioned audio summaries, that’s a feature that many people opt for, as it’s ideal for multitasking, and for using when you’re walking around/commuting. Headway involves professional voice actors to narrate the book summaries in order to provide you with the best listening experience. Professional writers actually collaborate with voice actors in order to create high-quality audio summaries.
Now, it’s worth highlighting that while good summaries are a solid alternative to actually reading books in their entirety, they’re not a replacement for the same. If you have the time, read the book. If not, Headway is here to help by summarizing them, while it can also help you choose the books you actually want to invest time to read in full. It has quite a few advantages, and while nothing is perfect, this is one of the best, if not the best book summary app.
The UI design is just right
Another thing worth highlighting is the design of the app itself and the vivid and unique book summary cover with hand-crafted illustrations. The UI is very minimalistic, simple. That’s a good thing, as the entire focus is on the content at hand, as it should be. There are several menu shortcuts available at the bottom, from which you can visit different parts of the app. Those are For you, Explore, Library, and Profile menus.
Headway tries to stick with color combinations that work, though the white one is predominant. It’s used as a background for the content and the application itself. Plenty of other accent colors are used for different categories, content, and so on. It’s obvious that it was designed with care, as it’s not busy and it actually looks modern. That’s something that every app should strive towards these days.
Headway app review: It is not free, but it’s great at what it does
One thing to note is… Headway is not free. If you do need a platform like this, however, you may find that it’s worth your hard-earned cash. The annual subscription for Headway costs about $89.99. There are also monthly and quarterly plans to consider, while discounts are also offered from time to time. What you do get for free is a free trial the first time you set up the app. That way you can experience the application before you opt to pay for it.
You do get a 7-day free trial, which is plenty for you to experience the app before committing to pay for it. Do note, however, that you’ll need to provide your payment info before you start the free trial. Headway will warn you before your free trial ends, though, so in case you don’t want to pay for the subscription, you can always cancel. With that being said, If you’re interested in checking out Headway, all the necessary links are included below.
