Headway
reviews and complaints

I think Headway is a cool concept. I used the trial but didn’t get to see much other than it reading books to me and the ability to save quotes from those chapters. The IQ test was brief but the results seem decent. I can’t figure out what the next steps are, though, aside from reading books it suggests for me. I don’t see any other aspect of this app.
Couple of problems that I have are… I subscribed for the year and was not given the $49.99 promotional price. They charged me $59.99 instead. I reached out to customer support and they told me to go to apple instead. I have a screenshot to prove this. Secondly by subscribing you do not get full access to this app. Once I was charged for the yearly subscription, it is still prompting me to purchase other aspects of the app for an additional fee of $19.99. I was pretty shocked by this, and quite turned off. Why pay for a full years subscription if it does not include all context on the app!? I’m not paying another twenty bucks on top of what I’ve already paid. I think this is misleading and intend to reach out to apple support to address the issue. I emailed Headway as well so if they respond I will update.

Headway is a great idea, but the summaries don’t measure up to the hype.

I’ve worked through six books so far, but have decided to request a refund because the app is so poorly written. The writing is sophomoric, clumsy, inarticulate and downright confusing. My guess is that the summaries are probably written by writers who have yet to reach a needed proficiency in English.

The result is the loss of nuance and complexity from the authors’ arguments and opinions. Here’s a sample from Headway’s summary of Aziz Gazipura’s “Not Nice” (Chapter 5):

“You’re rushing down to the elevator; you need to get 10 minutes left of your lunch break to properly utilize with a donut from downstairs.”

Properly utilize with a donut?

This type of poorly constructed sentence and confusing syntax drives momentary confusion that detracts from the whole experience. Instead of absorbing the main points from the book, I ended up annoyed at the half-baked writing that isn’t worth the money I paid. The writing also diminishes the intellectual impact of the books themselves and does their authors a great disservice.

High expectations unsatisfied. I’d like my money back, please.

I have been making recent advancements in my life to improve different aspects that I truly care about (my family, relationships, health, career). Some of these were made by excising and listening better. Some I didn’t know where to start a did research and found reading was a viable option that I never considered and began wish listing books.

After adding a near 200 books to my list after a year of reading, I realized that I need to read non stop for the rest of my life to read all these brooks before I die.

I got an add for this app, downloaded it, and it sat there for a few weeks. Once I got that impending reading doom again, I gave this app a chance. And man am I glad I did. I can read and listen to my wishlist so that I can 1. figure out if I want to keep or delete the book from my wishlist and 2. Actual get something out of the book even if I decide to delete it.

I know it cost money and that will instantly deter people, but u would highly advise to reconsider. The price tag just motivates me even more to continually use this app for my self betterment because I want to get my moneys worth.

If reading or podcast interest you to improve your life. THIS APP IS A MUST

I opted into this app from a Facebook ad. I have gone back-and-forth with Customer Service about charging me after the trial when it very clearly says when you sign up that several reminders will be sent when your trial period is about to run out so that you can decide whether you want to keep the app or cancel the membership. I received zero and I mean zero notifications. I also did not see the app in my recently purchased so there was no way for me to go back and delete it or unsubscribe until I was billed. I very respectfully wrote back two emails letting the customer service personnel know what had transpired and they could care less. I think this is very sneaky I am very aware of how trial periods work but I also believe that you can go back and see the history of the application being used or not used and I was not given any notification I think it’s garbage and really bad customer service and a really bad way to do business. I will eat the $40 but I feel like this is just mean and not a good way to attain and keep loyal customers. Tracking them into paying for something they don’t use and yes I said tricking because zero notification was sent even though your sign up process said it would.

Hello,

I have been using the headway app for a month now and so far I have enjoyed it very much. While many things about it are great I thought I could help point out a couple things to improve the headway iPad app.

I think a great way to get ideas on how to improve the app id by looking at the “Books” app from apple. I’ve been using that for years and many its pretty amazing.

Anyways, here are somethings I noticed:

1. iPad Landscape mode. This would be a great add since a lot of the iPad cases don’t allow you to place the iPad on portrait mode.

2. Font size at max seems to mess a lot of things. Line spacing is small. Highlight is hard seems like i need to point below the words for them to be selected.

3. Be consistent with font usage. I believe font consistency between paragraphs, quotes, and header might make it more visually plesuarable and easy to use.

4. Background color, the Books app from apple does a great job with this. It would be nice if you guys can add 2 more backgrounds. Black, and sand.

5. Highlight, i would also look into the Books app they do a great timed highlighting feature instead of highlighting something and showing a button. Also, sometimes when I highlight the button doesn’t show up.

Sent from my iPad

I like having books condensed for me because it’s nice to get the good highlights.

What this app lacks though are clear instructions on how to use it. Not just HOW, but setting goals, why is there a 5 minute daily goal but I’m also challenged to finish 1 book a day? That’s more than 5 minutes of my time. Do I fail the challenge for not completing the book in 1 day but get a streak for doing 5 minutes? How does it all work together?

I feel that the developers can see how it would be simple to use, and it is… but I need to know from the goals I picked when setting up the app and the profile, am I following those goals? I feel like it asked for what I want to focus on, then just tossed me into the large pool and told me to figure out how to find the edge. And I can’t swim.

Clear language and a task list related to the goals you defined. Plus, explanations on a daily time vs finishing a book. Also, better interface for navigating between screens. It took me forever to stop the playback on a book and get back to the main screen. This is where a tutorial on how to use the app would be beneficial. I literally feel like the creator doesn’t care about anyone who signs up, as long as they pay for the usage of the app.

Do better
- signed, an annual membership holder.

Just like a lot of people, I saw this app advertised with a lot of cool infographics and was truly looking forward to the idea of 15 minute book summaries. I scooted on over to the App Store, pressed that “Get” button and opened the app. To my pleasant surprise, I was greeted with the first paywall! The excitement grew within me when I declined, but the app told me I could get a new free book every day.

I was intrigued with the idea this scam simulator wasn’t trying to force more paywalls when it asked me to take a personality test. “Not normal for a scam”, I thought. I took the personality test, taking time with each question. When I reached the end, I jumped for joy. The laughter and enthrallment reached its peak when I read the message “A Special Gift For You!” There it is. WOW. Only $29.99 to just look at my personality test results? I chuckled to myself, concluding this was a new, fresh take on a scam simulation app. I could hear the developer’s evil cackles “Of course these peasants wouldn’t suspect we wouldn’t give them their personality test results.” Genius.

Five out of five stars. $30-$60 is the perfect price to get someone in, only for them to find out they cannot get their test results, the books are read by an AI narrator, and there are zero sweet looking infographics to look at.

Loved this experience!

Free Trail function is basically hidden from the start. Starts off with offering you a yearly or monthly subscription of 89.99 and 39.99 respectively. When you decline, it slashes the yearly price to 59.99. If you decline again, you get a "just for you" price of 29.99 annually, after taking a free quiz.

This is where I got snagged, and paid for the 29.99 subscription. This revealed the quiz results.

After seeing the results, I scanned through the available read list. I cant speak to the PhD authors and am not discrediting anyone within the read list, but the library is full of the most current and affluent Liberals/Left leaning persons and personalities.

To be honest, I would have been inclined to stay if there was any resemblance of this app being balanced, or more independent with it's selected insights to promote self-help and personal growth. While I hesitate to use the term "propaganda", I will strongly warn anyone considering this app to know what you are actually subscribing to.

I had no way of knowing the specific content within this app prior to purchase, is the only point Im trying to make here. If the intent is to target a particular group of people, there's nothing wrong with that, it just isn't apparent as they flash the subscribe button, and continue to reduce the subscription price every other slide.

Goodluck

I saw this app being sponsored, and after looking into it, decided to try the “free” trial. Well, apparently there’s no such thing. I got charged immediately without my knowing. Within 2 days of trying it out, I realized I didn’t like the format because it wasn’t what I was expecting. I went into the app, hit “unsubscribe,” and deleted the app. I thought this was all set. Until I received my credit card statement with a charge for the app on it. I was charged as soon as I downloaded the app. Not after the free trial. So apparently, hitting unsubscribe wasn’t good enough. I was apparently expected to contact apple for a refund. But didn’t realize I got charged until I got my statement in the mail, and now I’m outside of the cancellation period. The funniest part is, if I go back into the app, and hit “resubscribe,” I’m being notified that I’ll get charged. So I basically made a $64 donation to this app when I downloaded it. This is all infuriating, and super scammy. I’ve never had any issues with apps before, nor have I ever written a review, but after being on the phone with customer service for over an hour and being told there’s nothing they can do, I can’t help but want to warn everyone that this is how this app is operating. Shameful! Oh, and I was informed that if I contact my credit card to reverse charge, I could potentially lose my apple account. WOW!

I bought the annual subscription directly as I found out about the app. At the same time I downloaded Blinkist. These are very similar apps, however I would have rather spent the money on Blinkist if I’m being honest. The main problems with the app are the single monotone reader of the summaries, which sounds very robotic and nowhere near as engaging as the varied and surprisingly appropriate ones used in Blinkist, the inability to browse other titles while listening to a reading and the lack of any additional conclusion or summary section upon the completion of a book. These are all features that are present in Blinkist. Admittedly the inability to browse while listening to a book could be classified as a “feature” since that would be multitasking which is known to have diminishing returns for the separate tasks being juggled, but simply popping up a modal with a cute jab about this would make this limitation feel more intentional than a shortcoming as it currently does.Also there’s no integration for Readwise, which (… you know where I’m going with this) On the positive side the library is large, the UI is whimsical and inviting and very attractive. The app is easy to navigate and besides my stated gripes has no deal breaking flaws. The challenges are a cool addition and the yearly subscription is cheaper than Blinkist. Great foundation with room to improve and be truly a great app

I’m not going to lie, the first time I downloaded the app; I immediately deleted it. I didn’t understand the concept of the app and neither the value of it. But I knew I wanted to read daily even if it was for a few minutes. So a week passed after I deleted the app and my urge to read grew. So I’m like let me try this app once more with the free trial this time. And believe me when I say this - I fell in love! This is the best decision I’ve done. It’s so convenient in time and portable. I can just click the app and choose any book I want to read within a time period that I selected earlier on. That’s also something you can change. If you’re someone who is busy or doesn’t put enough time in reading but wants to just like me — you can set your goal time. It will customize and recommend books based of your goal setting. It’s absolutely beautiful. By doing this I’m able to read in between work hours and get the summary done within 10 minutes! It’s literally a whole book summarized. So convenient, easy, quick BUT informative. I look forward in reading a new summary each day. I learn a bit more each day. Since I was able to keep that streak in reading something each day - even if i didn’t finish the summary - I decided to purchase and did the one year subscription! This way I’m able to have more selections in reading and not be limited to one daily book. I love it! I’m so grateful and blessed for this app!

I’ll start with; luckily i read with my eyes, not my ears (I know, novel idea), so I love this.
I have the free version, which is one “book” a day. I really like it because it throws tons of different perspectives and self help options every day.
I found that some books didn’t pertain to me in any way, or were misogynistic in nature. I didn’t want to read them, and I understand not giving me the option to choose something else as a free user, but at least letting me thumb it down or something similar would help a lot. Maybe that could help some customized algorithm for the types of books I end up getting; or not, considering it could make it so I don’t get similar books that may have a better message. But I didn’t need to learn about being an astronaut or a sports player, so maybe something like that would help. But ultimately it would make it so I don’t get that book again... which takes me to my next point.
I’ve gotten the same book I’ve already read twice in a row. This would be great if I missed a day, or didn’t finish reading one day, but these two books (two days in a row, mind you), I have highlighted and finished. So making it so finished books don’t ever show up again is a must (I can’t get my reading goal of I’ve already read that book), and making it so I can thumb down books I don’t like so they don’t come up again or personalize the books I do get. I also can’t do my reading goal if I hate my daily book or it doesn’t pertain to me, not sure how you guys could fix that.

after this app renewed for a price of (100$) that I did not select or was it apart of the popup signon deal (I do not spend that much on apps so I’m sure & I’m careful when selecting ) meaning the app auto selected it over my preference chosen ! When I realized THE DAY OF more so the same hour they charged me I immediately canceled the plan , immediately contacted customer service to let them know I wasn’t using the service and there had to be a mix up, being they had several “bug fixes” on this app at the time I thought they’d have a little integrity behind customer issues but no.
(Unfortunately this happened the day of my kid birthday and I had full proof I was willing to show them so they knew I wasn’t just a petty caller ) As I let them know the situation they literally had no desire to investigate and was just very admin about no refunds. I hadn’t even attempted to use the service ! They offered no other options even as to restoring my service and it literally got purchased that day ! So I paid 100$ , nothing in return and the biggest inconvenience ever . Total scam.
i am a loyal customer and I love building up positive and informative platforms . I would’ve been such a consistent customer that it would’ve added up to more than 100$ I would’ve told my family and friends . That’s why it really took me back on how unreasonable they were being about the situation. I didn’t even use the service! With that being said you all be careful when purchasing with this company . You guys handling things like that, you’ll be your own downfall !

this app completely knocks it out of the park and for the price I’ve spent thousands on the books for $39.99 or $79.99. I’m saving money and getting everything and all of the books that I’ve been wanting to buy but I don’t have time to read. I can listen to them when I drive, read them at night apply them to my life, my favorite authors, I mean you name this Hass to be the best app I’ve ever invested in and probably the best investment I’ve made in myself because I can guarantee you the return that I get back from this app which I’ve already experiencing now so far definitely far outweighs the return I get back if I had to purchase as well as read every individual book it saves me time tons of time and gives me the meat and potatoes of all of the box as well as saves me a substantial amount of money so with that being said, I can take the money I’m saving and invested back into myself and my life, while at the same time using the tips and the methods and the techniques that I’m learning from the summaries the books the audiobooks I mean I can’t say enough about this app. It’s absolutely unbelievable. I’ve shared it with every person I know I’m telling you buy this app you won’t regret it. In fact, you’ll be so grateful that you did because in a matter of a day watch how your attitude your routines, yourself discipline all of that will begin to change and you’re right, you’ll gain momentum. This app has motivated me into actually taking action. This is outstanding best app ever and honestly whoever came up with is my app is an absolute genius kudos my gratitude definitely goes out and I’m only on my first week free trial and I’m certainly going to purchase this app annually. Now that I have it, I can’t even imagine living without it.

DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY

If I could give this app 0 stars I would. Soooo many things wrong with it and their customer service is complete garbage. I have never taken the time to review an app before.. but since their customer service is so slow and terrible I was forced to. By slow I mean it’s been a month and a half and they have gotten back to me 5 times.

I signed up for this app free trial and tried cancelling it prior to the subscription date and it wouldn’t let me (upon reading the other reviews this seems to be a common experience) DONT EVEN DO THE FREE TRIAL BECAUSE IT WONT LET YOU CANCEL

It charges you not for one month, but $90 for a full year. Once in the app a lot of the books are religious and the narration is terrible.. it’s so boring and almost impossible to pay attention to.

In addition.. once you pay the $90 subscription fee you have to pay $20 for every additional challenge or group of books you would like to hear.

The app is also very buggy and you can’t delete saved books from your library, the app won’t let you.

There is no way to call customer service so you have to email them. Their response time is HORRIBLE. I started emailing them regarding this issue and requesting a refund on January 5th and now on February 19th I am resorting to writing a bad review because they have only emailed me back 5 times in the month and a half I have been trying to resolve this issue and always say “sorry we have a high volume of requests” this is the worst $90 I have ever spent and know they charge you for a full year because they can’t retain clients.

In addition the “books” you get are not complete books.. it’s highlights.. and the whole book is complete within 20 minutes. If I am taking the time to read or listen to a book I want all of the info from that book, especially if it is a business book, not the highlights that someone else found important.

Never had a worse experience with an app or customer service, and this app is expensive. If you were charged monthly it would be one thing.. but you are automatically charged the annual fee and there is no way to change it.

Hey everyone! I teach self improvement and self reliance. I had this app come across my timeline so naturally I downloaded it because I’ve always had the mindset of trying new things to see if I genuinely like it. Considering it’s self improvement related, I thought I would give it a shot and if it’s great, recommend it to others.

I’m not sure who they’re target market is, but it’s not for people that have been practicing self development for a while. It’s a great introductory app and it has a great design with great marketing. The biggest issue I see is that it contradicts the entire point of self improvement.

The point of self development is to work on yourself to reach your fullest potential. This app in particular makes it easy to cut corners which actually inhibits your growth.

One of the biggest glaring examples of cutting corners is the fact that 10 minutes on this app a day equates to 30+ books a month being read. That, to me, makes me think that a lot of material (important material might I add) is being left out.

While the design is great and I like the idea, I don’t think $90/year is worth it considering you’re missing a lot of great information from very influential books.

I read one review that said “it was an audible killer” that’s not the case. This app, if anything, is going to further someone’s belief that they can’t reach their fullest potential when in reality they were just sold on to an app that doesn’t do much. Realistically what will happen is either someone buying this app will become more frustrated with themselves because they’re not getting results or they will see that this app doesn’t provide much substance and go back to audible anyway.

Another bothersome feature is the “who do you look up to?” question. This app provides 4 options to choose from (none of which I look up to by the way.) Additionally, those 4 options are options that appeal to the “dreamer” culture and an obvious grift

There are so many other great leaders that have nuggets of knowledge, to dwindle the options down to only the 4 this app provides leads me to believe that either the creators of this app are either in the beginning phases and are looking to expand their leadership options OR that they’re grafting because they know the culture of people behind “Elon Musk” and “Steve Jobs.”

In summary: Don’t cut corners. Sure this app is great for holding you accountable and the design is cool but there’s no substance. If you invest in this app and don’t see much progress, don’t beat yourself up. It’s not you, there’s just not a lot here for growth.

Have a great day!

I've been using the app and wanted to clarify this for everyone. It's a really great service to help you get through the slog of self-improvement books out there. It will help you understand those books at a glance. I think what's more important is how much books don't get read due to all sorts of factors in life. I know there is Blinkist out there but it's audio only, I think. A core of the people being attracted to Headway are looking for a premium audio experience. Honestly, ask yourself are you really going to be any more receptive to the knowledge if it's a better speaker? It just sounds like you want a Netflix and Chill experience. Contrary to that, I can't stand learning via audio or spoken word. It's just my learning style. I prefer to read and am way faster at doing so. So that's where Headway is a benefit to me. Another thing to note is, you'll reinforce your learning with Headway but it won't give you the full picture. I think in some aspects if you want to learn more you should get that book. And that's a great sign as to whether the book will be valuable to you BEFORE you purchase it. In terms of cost, I get $99 a year seems like a big deal and you do get an introductory cost of $30 for the first year. So here's my assessment on where I think Headway will actually SAVE YOU MONEY in the long run. You go on Amazon or whatever service and your like cool let's buy this book on a deal What did you spend? $15? OK next up in your busy or lazy life is figuring out when to read this book. Maybe you just go and do it on the John, or maybe on the bus or something like that. Alright you get into the mindset of reading and feeling so awesome you bought this book. So when reading you find your mind drifting off in the first section because this author is telling you a story about something that's supposed to give you an awareness of what you need to learn. 15 min or so pass and it feels like you just heard this story and never got any immediately actionable content that you could use in your life. Disinterested, you stop reading the book and go oh well I can continue this later. YOU'LL NEVER OPEN THAT BOOK AGAIN. Next week when you feel like your life needs some new knowledge, new purpose you go browsing on Amazon again. You find a book that you were eyeing is on sale for $18.98 vs $30. You get that book and happen to see another with a great price cut. Knowing it's on sale you feel good about getting a deal. Guess what happens next? The cycle repeats, and you do this throughout the year mindlessly. Maybe you have better control so you don't get as many books on deals and budget. Well at the end of the year you'll probably spend $300 on books you just don't read? You know the story that seems to bore you before teaching you something is called? Filler content requested by publishers to fatten up books. I don't know how many times I've gotten into this state where I have an awareness that this story in the middle is just bloat for the book. Not to say it doesn't have value, it's just they give you it before giving something meaty to use in your life. So at the very end of it all, the cost and the convenience of using Headway to screen out whether a book is valuable will save you money and time in the long run.

The world is so crammed full of nonsense these days and we are all super crazy busy that we rarely have the time to read books that shaped the generations before us. Enter Headway. You get a cliff notes version of the best of the best in a variety of categories and each book overview is roughly 20 minutes. In addition they give you the option to highlight specific areas, highlight a word and have it looked up by a dictionary if you need clearer insight and then key takeaways that you can check off and store them in a notecard section to “study” in a sense and review them as often as you’d like in essence to commit them to memory like you would for a test that reveals what information you retained. By doing this you carve out a pocket in your brain of truly insightful wisdom and once it’s committed to memory it becomes your own thoughts. Now you are thinking and often able to relay invaluable information to anyone struggling that sees you as a mentor figure. Which inevitably will happen the more you work with the app bc you’ll find that you are shaping your brain to stand out like they do and ppl will take notice and want to know how you got your life together when you weren’t even noticing you were doing so yourself. The price is a little high but worth the value of getting these amazing books broken down to the best points in them and a way to review those points whenever you have a few minutes by doing flash cards created for each book so you can also focus on one aspect at a time ie self development, business & career, happiness, etc.. They also do a great job of breaking up any tedium. They suggest books for you, give you challenges to work on, put together collections of works, have a space for visual explainers, and break down their library into tons of categories so that when you want to concentrate one a certain aspect you can continue till you’re ready to change. OR if you’ve been hearing about a book you should read and may have even saved it to kindle or audible or both thinking you’ll get to it when you have time and you’ve been telling yourself that now for a few ok several months, chances are you can use the search function and basically “speed read” through as I like to say. OR if you still can’t find a 20 minute gap to read go ahead and listen to it. I have found that I like to read when I’m needing self care moments but listening is a blessing when I’m driving for at least 20 minutes. It gets my mind focused on something other than bad drivers, the horrible traffic, the meeting I’m dreading on going to bc I need to speak and I have stage fright, and as I’ve recently learned worrying makes it worse so if I can keep my mind off of it and just walk in and get it over with I’m actually doing my health a favor since worry causes a whole host of physical ailments and to date has never accomplished anything positive in nature so it’s a huge waste of energy and as I’ve also learned the only type of energy consumer that causes our brains physical exhaustion. If, after all this, and your still on the fence, let me be your voice of reason. Something brought you to the app. Then something else brought you to investigate the ratings of the app. Now I’m telling you, go ahead and do something nice for yourself because it’s actually good for your physical and mental health and GET THE BOOK. You’ll thank me later…if you actually use it, that is.

I had paid for this app on 24th October. 2023 . It's less than 24 hours. I had paid initially 4990/year. It showed not subscribed but my money got deducted. Same time I purchased again for 2079 . The money got deducted even when on free trial period. It is not even 24 hours. I have cancelled my subscription . I want my money refund. I have contacted Google play . They have denied refund and have told to contact the app developer. I have emailed the same details . In your policy it is written you can get refund within 24 hours.I want my money back .I have attached all the invoice and receipt.

I really enjoy some of these books, they are motivational and really uplift my mind. However, I often get very bummed out at the heteronormativity in some of these books, and it just feels a bit off. At first I said, whatever, they just want to get a point across, but it is very consistent, and what made me finally write this review is when one of the books made a sort of sexist comment. There are not really any LQBTQ+ books which would make this growth experience more comforting, or furthermore, more general comments that don’t directly point out female vs male “traits” and heterosexual relationships only. I am looking forward to getting through more books, but I always get thrown off when some of the readings make some of these comments. I hope to see more diversity in the way these stories are told, at least so anybody can hear/read them without feeling out of place.

The app offers shortened versions of personal growth bestsellers. It’s makers exploit someone else’s intellectual work to get profit out of it. Not a good thing to support with your money. Moreover the shortened copies are so compressed that original idea often gets lost. I’d recommend everyone to read full books instead of using this app.

This is not the only stinky thing about the app. Apparently, as mentioned by other users, it tricks you into a free trial that is not actually free. You get charged by the end of the month even if you cancel your subscription.

The app is packed with a variety of private data trackers irrelevant to the core functionality. This is suspicious by itself and, given the fact that the app makers seem to be based in the “grey area” region where data protection standards are not always the highest, makes usage of the app potentially dangerous.

I downloaded this app for an interesting way to hear about some areas of life that I wanted to improve. My first day of listening I didn’t really notice that it was a computerized voice reading the information in the app. Day two I realized as the voice has no inflections and sounds like somebody just reading something without emotion. I decided that pain 3999 for three months was ridiculous and I’m trying to figure out how to get my money back on this app. I’ll doing so I noticed that they were offering other plans for the same three month premium level for 1999 so I don’t know what kind of scam this app is trying to pull one having different price points for the same duration of the subscription and to having an automated computer do the reading for the listen to portion of the app. I’m very disappointed in my spontaneous purchase of this app and wish I never purchased it

This is a lie. Don’t purchase it. I did and now I’m requesting money back and they don’t wanna give it to me.

After I bought it, while it look very well organized in the ad, The app is a disaster and zero looking like what the ad is promising.

It is a basic app as many others, very bad organized, and unclear to understand anything, mixed languages of books together, incapable to change the basic settings as - pick one language - even impossible to change the app language.

It is not intuitive and you will not know what to do there. 10 minutes later after I download the app and have the option to go through it, you can only do that if you already subscribe and pay, I saw, that this is another lie cheap tricky app again, I requested my money back.

They said no.

I am contacting the bank to get a charge back and I will invite you please to save yourself this disgusting experience I just had.
No no no.

I tried Headway for some piece of mind during my 2 hour commute to work. I was actually enjoying this app and was considering purchasing in the future. I missed the 7day window & of course $89.99 was swiftly taken from my bank account. I requested a refund on their app. They quickly canceled my access to books & showed i had requested a refund However my $89.99 is not in my account.
I emailed Headway asking when i should expect my $$ since I don’t have access nor my $$ at this point.
I received an email reply from Olha at Headway saying my email address is not what they have on file and I should contact Apple support.
I haven’t changed any of my information It’s the same info used to take my $$ so put it back!
What a nightmare this has now become when i turned to this app for some piece of mind. NEVER again. I’ll use a different more honest company next time. Until then I’m still waiting on an ETA of my Refund.
Yvonne

I don’t typically leave bad reviews. It takes a lot to get here and feel the need to share…
I bought this app and immediately regretted it. It’s utterly toxic. It forces you to read materials after a personality test to help “improve your life” and all the text REQUIRED to read through are each so toxic. The amount of misogyny, fat phobia, manipulation, and other horrible characteristics… I am appalled however this app got a good rating makes me loose faith in the star-rates systems here. I genuinely want to cry. I can’t believe this all is charging people and doing well, which implied people are eating this up and I just wish people much much better than what this app provides. Shameful and horrendous experience. I stayed on here for a span of time that only became progressively disappointing. I can’t. I can’t even ethically read what they *requirein order to experience what they consider life improvement. I feel horrible.

I wanted to do the free-trial to see what the app was all about. The only option you get is a week free trial and then $89.99 for the year. They state very clearly that they will let you know when your trial is about to expire so you can cancel before you’re charged. This is not true. I was given no warning before being charged $89.99 for an entire year. When I went into subscriptions, I saw that there were plenty of other subscription options including a monthly payment plan of $6.99. This was not offered to me when signing up for a free trial. I am extremely upset and displeased with the shadiness and willingness to take this amount of money from people after telling them they would be asked first and then not doing so. I would have been interested in the $6.99 option but now I have no interest at all. I have disputed the charge with Apple as well as my bank. How can you trust a company with your mental health and well-being if they’re being this shady right up front?

I found that many of the books are very short and to the point which is nice, but also that they’re almost written like an essay. It’s not very exciting to listen to or learn from. There are also a lot of quotations and peoples names mentioned what seems to be like every other sentence which is annoying when you’re listening to the book.

I also wish there was more evidence and real life situations/experiences that went along with the topics that were being taught/discussed.

The fact that some books talk about how people ‘feel’ or their ‘ideas’ of how things work needs to be brought up as well. Shouldn’t we be learning about what does work and not just some persons opinion on what they think will work.

Evidence based learning would be nice. Backed up by stories and examples with quoted people that the common man can recognize and understand their background. Not just “the author of this book” or some no name.

Great idea for an app and a place to learn but it could use adjustment and improvement.

There is a pretty good selection of books, which is great. Though the summaries of those books feel a bit impersonal & shallow, as if written by an A.I. system.

I have great difficulty retaining things when they are not relatable i.e. when theres lack of a story or personality behind the writing, as done here.

I was mainly excited about and bought this app (no free trial) so I could listen to the summaries while working in my shop or while driving.

The summaries are read by an awful and mechanic sounding AI system. For a $12.99 price tag, thats close in price to audible, I expected a person to be reading.

Theres no hope of learning anything when I cant stop thinking about how awfully bad this AI system sounds. A human reader/voice I don’t particularly favor with bad recording quality would be more preferable.

Can’t we set up Susan in HR with a mic for a few hours a day and get this summaries read right? I’d consider paying someone on craigslist $10 bucks per book and that would probably be better.

Gathering of information takes time. To customize a person’s lesson plan requires input from the consumer yet this person does not get compensated for their input which further refines and perfects your product. You may want to reconsider your pricing and timeline tactics.

The most inspiring intro advice should not be exploited with an obligation to purchase the rest of the advice

I’d recommend an overview of what your product is and how it has improved over time with additional subscribers before asking for a credit card number. Give credit where credit is due and that is the interaction between your customers and your product. Your own testimonial for your product leaves the door open for future customers to see value in what you provide instead of profiting off of Wisdom you can get at any church for free. There is a reason that the church greeters don’t hold the offertory plate when you enter a holy place. I’m all about making money because we all have bills. You wanted my review….? I gave you one.

I subscribed to this with every intent to use it, however, life happens & I was unable to use it like I wanted. I did not want to pay $19.99 a month for something I wasn’t able to use, so I went to cancel. It acted like I did not have a subscription via the app when I signed in. So I thought maybe it was a one time thing, versus an automatic renewal subscription. Turns out, my account did have a subscription attached still & I have been charged the $19.99. I caught it right after it came out of the bank & was able to contact the developers via email. I was told I would not be getting a refund. This is an inconvenience & not very professional. They told me I had to go to the webpage to cancel. How would I have known to do that? I signed up through the app but I can’t cancel through the app!?! SKETCHY! Will never use again.

***I did NOT USE ANY OTHER EMAIL! I used the same one I signed up with! Don’t lie & make it seem like it’s my fault! Even more of a reason to stay far away from this app & the developers!

It wants 89.99 and will try as hard as it possibly can to trick you into getting your $$. You get a notification of a new book to read their synopsis of everyday but when you click on it they won’t let you read that book unless you pay for it. Instead, your option is to read the free book of the day, which is something you’re not interested in and definitely not what you clicked on. The app offered to give me a free personality type to better understand what my work personality was, but it never gave me the result. At the end of the test where it supposed to give you the result it gives you a pop up offering you a deal on the app where you can get seven days free before the $89.99. I click the X on that one, only to get a totally new pop-up ad for the same crap. This pop-up doesn’t even have an x so you have to click on the screen around it to get it to go away, but the personality test results never show. You’ll probably never see your “free personality results” unless you give them 90 dollars. This app is a scam. Don’t waste your time.

I have listened to about 20 book summaries over the past two weeks on Headway. They have a great selection of books across huge variety of genres. I have found the summaries to be OK but not inspiring. One of the things about books that makes them great is the stories they tell, but you cannot fit a story into a 15 minute summary so while the content of the summary is good it lacks the impact that the real book has. I have yet to listen to a book read by a real human, they’ve all been either a male or female computer that does an OK job.

The functionality of the app itself is pretty bad. I get emails or notifications recommending certain books, but when you tap on that notification it opens the app back to the last page you were on instead of sending you to the recommended book. It takes forever to load the audio, and does not have any controls available in CarPlay. Today it told me “continue reading for zero minutes to meet your daily goal!”

Overall I am using it as a way to screen books to decide what I’m interested in actually reading, rather than finding inspirational summaries like I expected.

As someone who actively listens to audiobooks, I was really excited to give this app a try so I could find some new books to listen to on audiobook, but unfortunately the app feels like a letdown especially for the price.

The voices they use for the recorded summaries are so bizarre… one guy sounds like an awkward robot with the strangest intonation, another lady stumbles and slurs her words together to the point where you can’t understand her, and the third voice is just as bad. And the quality of the recordings aren’t very good either… the female voice sounds like they just recorded it on an iPhone. If this app only cost like $25 for the year I probably wouldn’t care, but if you’re expecting to charge almost $100/year for an app, the quality should be better.

Also, the wording of the summaries really need work in my opinion - the sentences at times feel like they were written by someone who doesn’t speak English well, or who didn’t have someone proof-read their summaries for grammar. And the sentences are SO basic, it doesn’t even make sense at times.

Cancelling my subscription but hope they improve these features in the future…

I love audiobooks for my walks with my pup every day, they give me something productive to do while I get us both some exercise.

I thought Headway would be a perfect compliment to these walks, a sparknotes version of books that would allow me to choose to read a book later if I enjoyed it.

But this company makes sure to put the only properly recorded voiceover for their first title, making it seem like all the books are high quality reads from a professional. But as soon as that first book is done it’s all bots and downhill narrative the books. Zero voice inflection, no enthusiasm and it’s nearly impossible to retain anything because it’s just so bad.

A voiceover is a necessity to this platform, and they’re not doing it so they can save money. They could find a way to get a deal done but they don’t. This product is absolute trash because it never should have been released without them.

BOTS are not a suitable replacement for HUMAN voice. Please do not support this company for their lack of respect for their own product. Please instead just continue to buy the audiobook you like and support the author directly, instead of this scam.