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eBook app for Apple Watch shows what not to do with watch apps

Want to read ebooks on your Apple Watch one word at a time? Of course you don’t.

There are apps that make a lot of sense for the smaller display and the quick access that Apple Watch provides, but this ebook reader certainly doesn’t hit that sweet spot. Perhaps some people are interested in reading books on their wrist one word at a time, but for others (most?), this new Wear Reader app is a great example of what not to do with Apple Watch apps:

Wear Reader flashes text rapidly on the screen one word at a time to suppress your inner vocalization and allow you to read quickly while still fully understanding the text.

Missed a word? No problem. It’s as convenient as pulling out your iPhone (the very thing the app is attempting to avoid) and navigating to the word. But your screen keeps falling asleep every 5 words? Blame Apple.

If reading books on your wrist does interest you for some reason, you’ll be able to use the $1 Wear Reader app to upload books from Dropbox or iCloud in ePub, DOCX, and text file formats.

This is a perfect example of why Apple recommends 5-10 second interactions with Apple Watch. It’s not only about battery life, but also the user experience overall. Not to mention holding your wrist up for much longer is ergonomically terrible, as Steve Jobs would put it.

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Comments

  1. PhilBoogie - 9 years ago

    Hilarious! That’s Microsoft stupidity right there.

  2. Andrew Messenger - 9 years ago

    This is kind of an ignorant article, tbh. The one-word-at-a-time reader has been a speed-reading method for awhile, and for those who use it, I’d say the watch is a decent to apply it.

  3. In 2004 I bought a pair of smart watches in the Chinese night market in Singapore (still have them, one even works). MP3 player, video player (played converted video CDs), FM radio, voice recorder, and yep…. an e-book reader.

    I can tell you from experience that watching On Her Majesty’s Secret Service on a 2″ OLED watch screen is far less painful than trying to read On Her Majesty’s Secret Service on a 2″ OLED watch screen.

  4. vandy75 - 9 years ago

    That only works for that famous 2 word book that begins with a transitive verb starting with the letter F followed by you

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.