Headway App Review 2024: Updated Ratings and Feedback from Users

Looking for a book summary app that does more than just summarize books? Enter Headway app, an app that takes book learning to the next level with fun interactivity and memory-boosting features.

In the crowded self improvement app space Headway has carved out a niche by combining education with entertainment. This review digs into the Headway to look at the learning paths and gamification.

By the end of this Headway app review of the 2024 with updated user ratings and feedback you’ll be able to decide if this app is the sidekick for you on your journey of knowledge and personal growth. Let’s take a look at what makes Headway a game changer in learning or just another player in the crowded book summary app space.

Headway App Review: What is Headway?

Headway is a book summary app that distills key insights from non-fiction books into concise summaries and bite-sized, easy to consume formats for those who want to learn and grow on the go. Since launching in 2019 the application has grown to over 30 million users, a big testament to its effectiveness and popularity among readers and lifelong learners. The tool goes beyond summarization, it gamifies learning with challenges, achievements, flashcards, visual explainers, and spaced repetition features.

This app covers a wide range of topics so there’s something for everyone. Whether it’s personal development, business strategies, psychological insights or historical context Headway has an extensive library of summaries that will expand your knowledge base. What sets it apart is its commitment to not just providing content but also the techniques to implement and retain the knowledge so it’s a full educational tool.

For those who want a more enhanced learning experience Headway has premium content available through in-app purchases. This unlocks additional features designed for different learning styles and to support personal and professional growth. Headway redefines the reading experience and positions itself as a top tool for learning and self improvement.

Headway Features

Headway is famous for being a bite-sized learning application that breaks down big books into bite sized chunks.

It focuses on personal and professional development areas like self-help and business. It’s designed to be elegant and simple so it’s for reading enthusiasts and audio learners.

Headway offers personalized recommendations that adapt to your preferences. This means each user’s learning journey is as relevant as it is enriching and tailored to their interests and growth goals.

Through its clean and simple interface you can browse for new insights or dive deep into summarized key points of factual books.

For different preferences the service offers text and audio summaries.

The “Remember” button uses spaced repetition to embed knowledge into the users memory so learning is fast, effective and lasting.

Custom Learning Paths for Personal Growth

Headway knows everyone’s learning goals and preferences are different. So it offers custom learning paths that align with your personal and professional development goals. These paths are not static, they are dynamic and built on user interaction with the content and their interests so the overall user experience is improved.

In addition to personalized learning paths, you can take the intelligence-type test which helps tailor the learning experience even further.

Gamification Features

Headway uses gamification to make learning more fun and less of a task. By turning learning into a game where you can earn achievements, set daily goals and maintain streaks the app boosts motivation and engagement. By being playful Headway injects fun into the learning process.

Visuals

The power of visual learning is no secret and Headway uses this by offering visual summaries alongside text and audio. Complex ideas from the books are broken down and turned into simple graphics that visually engage users and reinforce understanding and retention.

Navigation and UX

When you click on a title you can see more about the book before you get in. It will show you what’s in it, what you’ll learn, key points, and author info. You can also download them for offline use or mark them as favorites and get back later.

Formatting options

Compared to other competitors as for example Shortform, Headway doesn't offer extensive formatting options.

You can change to dark mode or adjust the text size from 60% to 150%. However, you can not change the font and changing the font size is not so smooth and lags a bit.

Audio versions

You can listen to a summary of the book, broken down into key points. There are rewind and fast-forward options that are pretty useful. You can also regulate the speed of the playback (0.5x - 2x).

Highlight and remember

Highlighting and notes: highlight anything you like and add a note or share it with others. All your highlights and repetition cards can be found in the Library tab so you can come back to them whenever you want and jump to specific parts of the book.

You’ll see quotes from the book as you read. These are saved as flashcards. Or if you go to the insights tab you can press the remember button to save them one by one.

Pros and Cons of Headway

• Gamified Learning: Challenges, achievements, flashcards and visual explainers make learning fun.

• Easy to Use: Simple and intuitive design to access the library of book summaries. Headway design is beautiful and smooth. 🎨

• Vast library: With over 2,000 summaries covering a wide range of genres

• Multiple Formats: Text and audio summaries.

• Retention Tool: "Remember" button for spaced repetition to review and reinforce learning.

• Boring Summaries: some users want more personality and depth in Headway’s summaries to match the original book’s tone and style.

• Audio Summaries: some users ask for more natural-sounding voices in audio summaries to match the written content.

How Does Headway Work?

First, you have to install the application on Google Play or the App Store. There are 4 signup options: Apple, Facebook, Google, or email and password.

When signup to Headway you’ll be asked to take an onboarding quiz. This quiz is personalized to match your interests, goals and personality. Based on your answers Headway will curate a list of book summaries and challenges that match your personal growth goals.

Once you’ve completed the onboarding Headway opens up its library of over 2,000 book summaries.

For You tab

• Streak Counter: See your current streak. This will encourage you to use the app more and develop a habit.

• Weekly Stats: The app tracks and shows you your progress, including key points learned, time spent and insights gained. So you can see how you’ve progressed over time.

• Interest Categories: Choose your interests and it will curate content for you based on that.

• Up next: Shows you a selection of book summaries picked for you. These are often based on your interests and reading history.

• Random Selection: For those who like variety there’s a random summary option. This adds an element of fun to your learning.

• Daily Microlearning: Offers quick, bite-sized learning sessions to fit into your busy schedule.

  

  

• Goal-Oriented Content: Presents top-rated book summaries aligned with your specific goals, such as having a successful career. This content is curated based on your previous quiz responses and category selections.

• Personalized Challenges: Challenges to help you build specific habits or skills. For example, a 5-day "Morning Routine" challenge to build morning habits.

  

• Collections Made for You: It curates book summaries based on your interests. Collections are grouped so you can dive deeper into a topic.

The Explore Tab

• Search: Top search bar to find content by title, author or keywords.

• Interest Categories: Broad topics under "I want to learn about" are sorted in 16 categories:
  - Self-Growth

  - Business & Career

  - Fiction

  - Productivity

  - Home & Environment

  - Society & Tech

  - Health

  - Family

  - Sports & Fitness

  - Personalities

  - Happiness

  - Spirituality

  - Leadership

  - Love & Sex

  - Money & Investments

  - Negotiation

• Latest Summaries: Recently added summaries to keep content fresh and encourage users to try new stuff.

• Collections: This section has summaries grouped around themes or skills. For example "How to Read People" is about impressing, convincing and affecting others, and another is about communication for success.

  

• Visual Explainers: This feature has book summaries with visuals. It’s designed to make complex concepts more understandable and memorable through pictures.

• Intelligence type test. What type of intelligence are you? Find out and get book recommendations.

The Library Tab

• Content Categories: At the top, there are three more tabs: Summaries, Repetition, and Highlights. This allows you to quickly access your saved content.

  

• Continue Reading: This section shows the book currently in progress. It displays the book cover and a progress bar, making it easy for you to resume where you left off.

• Download and Options: The summaries includes buttons for downloading the content and accessing additional options: share, mark as finished or remove from library.

  

• Saved for Later: This section displays books that you have bookmarked to read in the future.

• Finished section. The books you've already finished reading till the end.

• Search Functionality: A search icon in the top right corner allows you to quickly find specific content within their library.

The Repetition tab

• Spaced Repetition: This feature is prominently displayed at the top with a cute brain icon. It invites users to "Tap to see how it works," introducing the concept of spaced repetition for better learning retention.

  

• Repeat Cards: Spaced repetition to lock in key takeaways. Make flashcards for important concepts and review them daily. When prompted, answer each card. Your answers tell the system how to space out the reviews. Daily habit compounds this and helps you apply new knowledge in life.

  

• Book Cards: Each card shows the book cover and the number of repetition cards associated with it.

The Highlights tab

The tab displays a list of books from which you have made highlights. A number in a circle on the right indicates the number of highlights made in that book.

My Profile Tab

This tab contains the following sections: My Achievements, My Learning Progress and Invite Friends.

My Achievements: These are badges you’ve earned for various things. Ex, Star Shooter, Jumpstart, etc.

My Learning Progress: Displays your progress in the app, indicating where you stand among other Headway users and various statistics, for example: the number of book summaries you have completed, the total number of pages you have read, etc.

Is the Headway free?

You don’t need to commit to a big investment to try out Headway book summaries. Start with Headway’s free version and get one book summary a day plus daily insights for free.

Headway offers 7-day free trial for users to explore the application before committing to a payment plan.

How Much Does Headway Cost?

Premium plans start at $7.41/month when buying annual subscription. Monthly and annual plans are available for $14.99 and $89.99 respectively. There is also a three-month plan which costs $29.99 for 3 months. Use the app fully and know you can choose how you invest in yourself.

Businesses looking to equip their teams with Headway can fill out the form on the Headway website for the business plan pricing (priced per team size).

Popular Books on Headway

Below are some popular titles on Headway with a brief description and author:

• "The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life" by Robin Sharma: Morning routine for success

• "How to Talk to Anyone" by Leil Lowndes: Social skills for all situations

• "Make Your Bed" by Admiral William H. McRaven: Small habits, big changes

• "The 80/20 Principle" by Richard Koch: Do more with less

• "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey: Personal effectiveness

• "Deep Work" by Cal Newport: Focused work in a distracted world

• "The Infinite Game" by Simon Sinek: Long-term thinking for business and life

• "Ego Is the Enemy" by Ryan Holiday: Holiday explores the pitfalls of a high ego and provides insights on staying grounded.

Headway vs Blinkist

Headway and Blinkist are book summary apps for people who want to learn without having to read the full book. Both apps provide summaries but there are differences in their offerings and user experience.

• Headway has over 2,000 self development titles while Blinkist has over 7,500 titles across all genres.

• Headway has a unique engagement model that uses gamification and spaced repetition to help with retention – not available on Blinkist.

• Blinkist has Shortcasts, discussion Spaces and Guides with activities to enhance the learning experience.

• Blinkist can be used on desktop while Headway is only available on mobile.

• Headway has a modern and visual design with personalized gamification elements like streaks and challenges.

• Note that Headway’s summaries are more factual compared to Blinkist’s narrative style.

• Headway’s monthly plan ($14.99) is slightly cheaper than Blinkist’s ($15.99) and its annual plan ($89.99) is cheaper than Blinkist’s yearly subscription ($99.99). Both apps have a free tier and 7-day trial with full access.

Books count	2,000 (mostly self-development)	7,500 (various genres)
Works offline	yes	yes
Free trial	7-days risk free	7-days risk free
Free Tier	One new book a day (random)	One new book a day (random)
Free version	yes	yes
Gamification	Challenges, Achievements, Flashcards, Visual Explainers, Spaced Repetition	Limited engagement features
Additional Content	Not provided	Shortcasts, discussion Spaces, Guides
Apps	Android, iOS (mobile only)	Android, iOS, web (works on desktop)
Monthly plan	$14.99	$15.99
Annual plan	$89.99	$99.99
Annual with discount	$47.99	$64.99
Refund	Not clearly stated	14-day refund policy
Podcasts	No podcasts or summaries	Shortcasts
Summary Style	Fact-based	Narrative with human elements
UX Design	Modern and visually appealing	Less modern
App Store rating	4.7	4.8
Google Play rating	4.5	4.4

Both Headway and Blinkist have features that cater to different tastes so the choice between them depends on your learning style and interests. Read our Blinkist review.

User Feedback and Ratings

Headway’s user feedback is that it’s a platform that motivates and inspires because of its interactivity and gamification. The platform is praised for its easy to digest content, makes reading and listening easy and enjoyable and overall a great user experience. 30 million of Headway’s users have downloaded the app.

Positive reviews from media outlets like Daily Mail, Mobile App Daily and MakeUseOf agree with this. Headway is praised for its unique approach to learning in bite sized chunks. This resonates with users who have busy schedules but want to grow personally through reading.

But not all user feedback is positive. Some have complained about the artificial sound of the audio versions and that the subscription is more expensive than other similar services.

Here are the app’s ratings on major platforms:

The positive reviews and high ratings indicate a successful content delivery model that engages users, despite some minor user concerns.

Is Headway worth it?

It is a total tool for personal growth. With a subscription of $14.99/month, $29.99/for 3 months or $89.99/year Headway caters to different users needs and allows flexibility in commitment and investment.

It's unique selling point is its interactive features. Spaced repetition and daily insights are powerful tools to consume content and actually remember and apply the principles. Challenges add another layer of engagement and turns the learning into an interactive and fun journey.

When you compare the app’s price to its simplicity and features we think Headway is worth it. And with a 7-day free trial you can try the premium features without committing to a purchase. For those who invest in self-improvement and assimilation of knowledge from factual books Headway’s value proposition is strong and many of its users think it’s worth the money.

Final Verdict: Overall Value of Headway

Headway stands out from other book summary apps by being user driven. It’s for those who value personal growth and motivation in their learning journey. The app has interactive flashcards that not just summarize but also helps retain knowledge – a big plus for serious learners who want to deeply absorb new insights.

The app is modern and pretty to look at, so it’s a pleasure to use. The combination of simple navigation, nice visuals and smooth animations makes it more than just a reading tool, a dynamic platform for users.

When it comes to value for money Headway is well priced for what it offers. It’s in the sweet spot of the market, so it’s a good mid-range option.

• Personalized Experience. Keeps users engaged and motivated

• Gamification. Adds fun and competition.

• Modern UI. Enjoyable to use.

• Mid-range Pricing. Good value.

In short, Headway is good value for those who want to learn with technology. Whether it’s right for you depends on you.