Magibook - Read at Your Level 4+

Maybe I’ll actually read now …

I never leave reviews, but this app intrigued me and has surpassed expectations.

I am someone who struggles to read. Trying to comprehend what I’m reading is distracting, and I end up losing track and giving up. I haven’t read a book since I was in elementary school for this reason. It was always a struggle for me. I never even thought to attempt the classics…knowing how clever the wording was.

This app has made it simple enough where I can pay attention and still be able to say I read the book. It gives me an opportunity I didn’t previously have.

So many people are hating, but that’s because they don’t see the bigger picture. EVERYONE deserves a chance to read whatever book they like. And this app is the key to unlocking that possibility.

The only reason I gave it 4 stars is because there is a limited amount of options. Ideally I’d like to see thousands of books, not just classics. All genres, all age groups, big and small authors. This app has so much potential and I am excited to see it blow up.

You should seriously go on shark tank and get some huge backing to make a software like never before. I’d invest in it.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for your kind review! We designed this app specifically to make books accessible to everyone who has a genuine interest.
We completely agree with your statement about books and features! I wish we could show you everything we have coming in the pipeline. We definitely have some cool stuff in the works.
We should be pushing out an update today or tomorrow in which we will double our book collection, and we hope to conitnue doing this indefinitely. The aim is to have as many books as possible!

Unlearn your ableism before getting this app

Seriously, SO MANY of the posts on social media and these two reviews are based on the premise that this app is “dumbing down” literature. First off, READ the text in the first preview image. For folks who claim to be so “educated”, it’s very evident that you’re viewing this app through a reactionary lens of moral outrage that’s really just ableism masquerading as some twisted sense of undeserved “superiority”. It is very evident that this isn’t for the average person who can read the classics and learned to analyze them, it is meant for people, including educators and the intellectually disabled. This is clear from the start. This is NOT about the “idiocracy” (God help you all who use the same exact movie reference to denigrate anything that you don’t like) this is about ACCESSIBILITY. Accessibility is literally what disabled people lack on a regular basis and those who are intellectually disabled deserve opportunities to learn. Given how new this service is, this is actually a necessary use case to accommodate intellectually disabled and neurodivergent people, as well as those who suffer from functional illiteracy.

My main criticism of this app is in the AI implementation. But note that, at the moment that I’m writing this review, it is a free app and I’m hoping that the AI implementation can be a bit better as, currently, the syntax seems to be the main issue. There are times when subsequent sentences don’t really match in terms of context. I think that using more complex large language models for better and more appropriate diction could improve this and, given the cost and potential value, I would see this as a potentially valuable paid service. I would also suggest the author to collect expert opinions from literary scholars, disability advocates, and childhood education specialists who can confirm this app’s value. If such reviews already exist, I would suggest to the author that they add this information to their website and their App Store description.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for your review and understanding of our app's mission. The App is currently in it's very early stages of development. We have major updates coming soon including the addition of more book titles, much more features and improved accuracy. We hope you will stick around for the journey !

I thought it was fake but…

It was real. I was an English teacher working abroad in Korea, China and Thailand and I can say confidently that this isn’t a learning tool, it’s the defacing of literary work. Reading education should not require the alteration of the authors words, there are already thousands of books at every reading level that English learners can use to build up to this level of reading. This is close to the old issue with CliffsNotes, it’ll help you pass a test or book report, but you won’t know what you read, you just get these simplified ideas. The Mona Lisa if it was painted in only five strokes. The fact this is done by AI makes it worse, too. It means there developer just put a shell up, ran a few chatGPT rewrites that took ten seconds each, and slapped it on the App Store, hoping to eventually convince some dum dum publishing house to let them put books that aren’t in the public domain on it and scam a living for themselves.