A new speed-reading app called Spritz was just launched last week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and will be embedded in the Samsung Galaxy S5 phone and the Gear 2 smartwatch – both of which are slated for launch next month. The Spritz app flashes words in one location so your eyes don’t have to travel across the page, therefore increasing the amount of words per minute that your eyes can consume. The average reader reads about 220wpm but with the Spritz reader you can adjust the speed anywhere from 200wpm up to 1000wpm – wheeeha! I’m not sure how much faster the words can be read without sacrificing comprehension, but it’s clear the text is contained in one very small footprint…this might be just the excuse I need to buy a smart watch. Here’s what Spritzing looks like in action:
250 words per minute:
350 words per minute:
500 words per minute:
There was a service by Spreeder that did something similar, but Spritz has improved on the Spreeder approach by aligning the words in a way they think will be most easily processed by the brain. They’ve also colored one letter to make it even easier to visually digest and maintain that alignment, and I noticed that (unlike Spreeder) Spritz pauses slightly at commas and periods. You can check out the technical details of Spritz’s app design on the Spritz blog.
I’m intrigued and definitely look forward to seeing Spritz offered in eBook readers and on social media sites.
So, what do you think – will Spritz sink or swim?
Cred to Lucas Webb for posting about Spritz on facebook this morning. I would not have otherwise known this app existed!
Funky. I like it.