What is in the new reading and memory category?

Why add reading?

Because reading is a job, like planning or starting, and it fails in its own ways: you do not start, the pages feel like wading, or you come back after a gap and the story is gone. Our existing lists covered the first of those through focus apps and body doubling. They did not cover the other two: listening tools, and getting back into a book after a gap.

Reading also overlaps with memory. A paused book needs the same thing a paused task does: somewhere outside your head that holds where you were and what mattered. So the category is “reading and memory”, and it includes a guide to memory apps for tasks, reminders and ideas as well as books. The common thread is external memory, not memory improvement; nothing in the category makes a medical claim.

What was added?

• Reading and memory: the category front, with every page in one place.
• The best ADHD apps for reading: a list sorted by the job each app does.
• Magic Bookmark desk review: a recap app that stops at your page, for supported titles on iPhone.
• Speechify and Libby as new desk entries, on the reading list and the price tracker.
• Magic Bookmark vs Speechify: a recap tool against a read-aloud tool.
• Guides: finishing books, text to speech, audiobook apps, timers for reading, immersion reading, body doubling for reading, memory apps, free reading tools, and two general guides on choosing an ADHD app and whether ADHD apps help.
• Resources: reading app prices, a feature matrix, an FAQ, a glossary, a printable trial log and stack worksheet, and how we assess reading apps.

What changed in how we score?

Every score on this site is a provisional desk score, flagged DESK REVIEW · PROVISIONAL. For the new reading entries we went stricter: a criterion gets a number only when an official page gives evidence for it, and the result shows as points out of the points available. Magic Bookmark is 55 of 70, Speechify 24 of 35, Libby 16 of 20. Those numbers are not comparable with totals out of 100 or with each other. The method is set out in how we assess reading apps.

What did not change?

No existing score, rank or verdict moved. The main list’s order is the same. We added a job-by-job index and three questions to the best ADHD apps page, and one fact check: Focusmate’s free tier is now confirmed as up to three sessions a week (see the price check).

What comes next?

• Hands-on runs of the three new reading tools, so the partial scores become full ones.
• A tap protocol adapted for recap apps, published before we use it.
• Re-checks of every price on the reading price sheet, with dates.