reading

Four Minute Books makes it easy to feed your voracious mind, no matter how busy you are

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Save big on this subscription service that summarizes more than 1,000 books within minutes.
Browse or listen to mini-books that include some of the globe's top titles for only a fraction of the cost.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

From office work to home maintenance, personal obligations have a way of getting between you and a good reading session. Fortunately, advanced book-summary service Four Minute Books created a new approach to staying entertained and informed from anywhere, even with limited free time.

A lifetime subscription to Four Minute Books is on sale for $39.99 a fraction of its standard cost of $399.

Get the skinny on books in 15 minutes with this app [Deals]

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Booknotes
This digital library for busy people provides the key insights from over 1,000 best-selling books in just 15 minutes.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Reading is important and fulfilling, but it can take more time than many of us have. It’s also an unspoken fact that books are often longer than they need to be, so sometimes the best thing to do is just get a summary.

Get the gist of popular books in just 15 minutes [Deals]

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Booknotes
This digital library for busy people offers summaries of over 1,000 best-selling books in just 15 minutes each.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Books a key part of human culture, and an essential way of staying informed. Unfortunately, many of us have limited time for reading, so getting through a book is an accomplishment that can take weeks or longer. Luckily, you can get a lot out of a book without reading the whole thing, and that’s what BookNotes offers.

Learn 6 ways to read faster and retain more [Deals]

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The Speed Reading Mastery Bundle
With these speed reading courses, you'll learn to spot and fix whatever is holding you back.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Reading is the road to greater understanding of the world and ourselves. For many of us, though, it can be a slower road than we’d like. But reading is a skill like any other, so you can improve with practice and guidance. That’s just what this bundle of six speed-reading courses offers.

Microsoft Edge on iOS can now read your favorite websites aloud

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Get the latest update today.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

Bedtimes stories don’t get much better than the latest stories from all your favorite writers at Cult of Mac. And now Microsoft Edge for iOS can read them to you.

The new feature, added in the browser’s latest update, improves accessibility for the visually impaired and those who find it difficult to interact with iPhone and iPad.

Skip the long reads with hundreds of book summaries [Deals]

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This service offers comprehensive summaries of the important books you don't have time to get to.
This service offers comprehensive summaries of the important books you don't have time to get to.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Reading is one of the best things we can do to stay informed and keep our minds sharp. But it’s also one thing for which there’s never enough time. Instead of stressing over the books you can’t get to, this service gives the gist so you’re not in the dark.

Read 20% faster by mastering a single cognitive trick [Deals]

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Using color coding to connect lines of text, BeeLine's reading system can boost your reading speed and comprehension.
Using color coding to connect lines of text, BeeLine's reading system can boost your reading speed and comprehension.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Ever catch yourself re-reading the same lines, or making it to the end of a page only to realize you don’t remember it? These are the signs of weak reading technique, and if that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Luckily, there’s a way to improve.

Learn to boost the speed and quality of your reading [Deals]

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Reading is a skill, and this pair of courses will help you sharpen it, boosting reading speeds and retention while breaking bad habits.
Reading is a skill, and this pair of courses will help you sharpen it, boosting reading speeds and retention while breaking bad habits.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Reading is a skill, and like all skills, there’s always room for improvement. So if you constantly find yourself re-reading paragraphs, or just staring at a book but never finishing it, these courses can help you out.

Learn the secret to reading better and faster on your iPhone [Deals]

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This browser-based tool uses color to guide the eye from line to line, increasing reading speeds by up to 20 percent.
This browser-based tool uses color to guide the eye from line to line, increasing reading speeds by up to 20 percent.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Do you find yourself re-reading the same sentence over and over again? Or accidentally skipping lines in a paragraph, momentarily losing your place? You can fix these issues with the right reading technique, and this browser-based tool can help.

The Kindle app puts an entire library in your hand [50 Essential iOS Apps #16]

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The Kindle app is the perfect platform for reading e-books on iPad or iPhone. It's one of Cult of Mac's 50 essential iOS apps.
The Kindle app is the perfect platform for reading e-books on iPad or iPhone.
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

50 Essential iOS Apps: Amazon Kindle appReading books. It’s something we’ve all done at some point in our lives. People read for fun, learning or taking a break. The trouble is, having a huge collection of books takes up space and can literally weigh you down.

E-books are the solution, and the Kindle app is an excellent way to enjoy the world of literature without straining your back or your physical space. With the Kindle app, you can carry an entire library’s worth of books on your iPad or iPhone.

Get your reading up to speed [Deals]

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Vastly boost your reading speeds with this pair of useful apps.
Vastly boost your reading speeds with this pair of useful apps.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Reading is the key to a broader, sharper mind. It’s also the key to success for countless innovators and entrepreneurs with voracious reading habits, no less than Elon Musk and Bill Gates. So if you want to make a difference in the world and in your life, reading more is square one.

Shower while grooving to your favorite tunes [Week’s Best Deals]

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This week's best deals include a shower-proof Bluetooth speaker, mobile VPN protection, and more.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

We’re back for another round of the very best deals on gear and gadgets in the Cult of Mac Store. This week, we’ve got an extra huge Bluetooth shower speaker, a simple but powerful mobile VPN, a handy app for cutting down on reading times, and a set of workout-ready Bluetooth earbuds. Everything in this week’s roundup is discounted by 75 percent or more, read on for more details:

Medium comes to iPad, and the best social reading app gets even better

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Outside of reading Cult of Mac (which you’re already doing!) Medium is one of the best go-to destinations of quality writing on the Internet. A blog publishing platform co-founded by ex-Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone, Medium is an effortlessly easy-to-use social journalism network that puts content — not ads — first. It’s like WordPress meets Instagram.

Medium already has a wonderful iPhone app, but sadly, universal support was missing at launch. But that’s all changed, and you can now surf Medium on your iPad as well.

How To Add Epub Books To Your iPad Without iTunes [iOS Tips]

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iBooks iPhone

It used to be fairly simple to add e-books (of the epub format) to your iPad or iPhone via your Mac, using iTunes file sharing. You’d simply drag and drop the book into iTunes, connect your iOS device, and sync the non-iBook file via the file sharing system in iTunes, just like any other file supported by apps on your iPad

With the advent of iBooks on the Mac with OS X Mavericks, there is no longer a way to sync epub books in this way. You might be stymied on attempting to get epubs from your Mac to your iPad, but thanks to an intrepid Cult of Mac reader, we all get to learn how to do just that.

Level Up Your Life With The 7 Course Life Hack E-Learning Bundle [Deals]

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CoM - LifehackBundle

If you’ve ever wanted to take your life to the next level in a whole slew of areas, then this Cult of Mac Deals offer is for you. We’re offering lifetime to access to 7 courses that consist of over 55 hours of actionable material that will improve your daily life.

And we’re offering it to you in the form of The 7 Course Life Hack E-Learning Bundle for just $59 – a savings of $419!

Run-n-Read, A Virtual Steadicam For Reading On Your iPad

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I can think of little more boring than grinding away on a gym treadmill the thump, thump thump of your heavy feet slamming out a soporific beat over the even more mind-numbing whirr of the machine. Running outside is dull enough; running inside must be insufferable.

Which is why Steve invented the iPad. For reading while you’re at the gym: how else can you explain its bright, easy-to-read screen or it wipe-clean glass front? The problem? Jiggle. That is, your head is moving, your iPad’s screen isn’t and the mis-match makes reading hard, which is the problem the Run-n-Read purports to solve.

Speed Read Your Way Through Your Documents, Books, And Emails [Deals]

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CoM - Speed Reading

I’ve madea a point of trying to read more books this year than ever before. The fact that I can have books on my iPad, e-reader, and even on my phone (along with good old-fashioned paper books), I’ve got more to read now than ever before and that’s a good thing. But with all of that reading material it would sure be nice to up my reading speed.

That’s what this Cult of Mac Deals offer aims to do. In fact, with this Speed Reading Course, Udemy guarantees you will read at least 33% faster – or you have 30 days to get your money back! And you can get this course for only $49 for a limited time!

Jeff Cannata On His Old Show, His New Show, And The Apps He Loves On The CultCast

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We mix it up on this week’s CultCast! Join us for a very special hour with guest Jeff Cannata, former co-host of The Totally Rad Show (TRS) on Revision3 and current co-host of CNET’s Always On.

For all of you who used to watch and love TRS, we remember the show and relive how its cutting-edge virtual set — all made with just one camera and a Mac Pro — made it one of the most popular and beloved podcasts on the internet. Plus, what’s it feel like Kickstarting over $100,000 for a new show? Jeff knows, and shares his amazing experience.

All that and Mr. Cannata reveals his favorite iPad apps and gadgets! Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes to download our newest episode, or just hit play in the player below to listen right in your browser.

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Show notes up next!

The 128GB Retina iPad Is The Desktop To The iPad Mini’s Laptop [Opinion]

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With Tuesday’s’s announcement of a 128GB iPad 4, Apple is clearly signaling that the iPad is not only suitable for serious work, but that it can be the primary machine for many users. Most commenters have fixated on fitting extra movies and other consumables into the extra 64GB of space, but they’re forgetting about work.

In fact, I’d say that the iPad With Retina Display, as Apple now insists on calling it, is the new desktop machine, and the iPad mini is the new laptop. Why? Let me explain: