Logos...can you please reduce the friction?

You mean like this?

I'll

Can you explain how you did this and on which device you're running this mobile app?

This speaks to my earlier point regarding how you must go to forums, watch YouTube, Morris Proctor, etc., just to do what a Kindle app user can learn to do on their own within two seconds of using the app the first time. 

I am already running Logos Mobile plus Kindle plus other apps on a single (Onyx Boox) E-ink device

How does it work for you? Is it usable?

Just for reading: perfect. 

JBR, thanks for your explanation. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain. However, your explanation pretty much proves the point in what my original post was about, which is wanting to see Logos reduce the friction in both the reading experience and highlighting in the mobile app and the ability to easily access and see all highlights within a book on the mobile app. The fact that it is not intuitive, and requires explanation is exactly my point.

I followed your explanation to the letter, creating a notebook called “Books” and a tag for an author and then highlighted a couple of sentences and then opened and tagged the note that was created by the highlight (not even remotely a frictionless reading experience as I’ve been comparing to the Kindle app). Following your steps produced this:

As you can see from each progressive screenshot, none of these show the highlights. And if they did, I would still have to stop each time I make a highlight, open the note, and tag it. My screenshot comparison of Logos mobile app vs Kindle app shows the significant differences in which I’m referring to in this topic. I would love nothing more than for you to show me where I messed up the process here or misunderstood your method, JBR.

I’d really love it if someone from Logos read this thread 🤞

Mark,

JBR has shared a process much like the one I use but has explained it much better than I probably could.

I agree with you though that the process would be easier to use if the "friction" in setting things up were to be reduced. While I am not sure, it could be that the difference you see as opposed to what we see may be due to the individual settings we each have within our own Logos set up. Whenever I highlight something to make a note, it automatically adds the highlighted portion into the anchor of the note, becoming part of the note. 

Every month or so, a forum member will share something that makes it easier for me to use Logos; I think to myself, “why didn't I see that earlier?” (The adding of tags as shared by JBR is a good example.) The complexity that allows us to do so much, seems to be the very thing that causes friction for some things that we might think should be simpler to do.

The desktop app comes with a number of Quickstart Layouts that make it easier to create layouts for particular needs. A suggestion could be made that such Quickstart Layouts be created for mobile apps, with a number of these layouts dedicated to different styles people may use to read or study individual books — such as Read Book Only, Read with Notes, Read with Notes and Bible, etc. Each of these layouts could include default tagging and other tools that may be needed.

Here’s another example…

Here’s another example…

It looks to me that you have a blue underscore selected as your highlight feature. To change that for a specific note tap the A that is on the menu bar of the note at the upper right and make a new selection.

Sam - It doesn't.

JBR - I'm not sure why I would want to change the highlight. I understand how to change the highlight tool I'm using, but regardless of it being yellow highlighter or a blue underscore it doesn't show up in the notes as anything other than a symbol and an anchor.

JT - I noticed the link was for a conversation about this same topic back in 2014. That's nine years ago. This is the very thing that frustrates me the most. As I said in my first post, if Logos is never going to improve this because they can't or they just don't care to do it, that's fine and perfectly their right. My frustration is really just in wanting a clear answer from Logos after they express interest in what the users have to say and then indicating that they are going to act upon that feedback. But this is nine years later.

I started this conversation in the hope that someone from Logos would take a look and just give a clear answer. At this point I feel like I'm beginning to sound redundant and I know that written communication doesn't convey tone. To avoid the risk of being misinterpreted as a completely dissatisfied and demanding customer, I'm going to stop raising this issue and just continue enjoying the aspects of Logos that I completely love and have enriched my life and study while continuing to privately live with angst over having books spread out over multiple platforms.

I really appreciate all the time effort you guys have shown in trying to help me. The Logos user community is great!

For me, the “Show full anchor text” setting is available in my Windows desktop app, but not in my Android app. Also, while I can toggle between showing and not showing the anchor text in my Android app, the default continues to be showing the anchor text. Changing the default in Windows does not appear to affect the settings in my Android app. I cannot speak to whether the setting is available on the apple mobile app.

So, would it be best to consider this a bug, or a needed design request? Fixing this issue would go a long way in my mind, toward making Logos far better for reading books than kindle (and hopefully just as easy).

When I was in seminary, I highlighted my textbooks and then reviewed the highlights prior to exams. For that purpose, and similar ones, my understanding of your request would be ideal.

Here you have captured the merit of this request and apropos the timeliness of it as Logos seeks to streamline its GUI.

I see it being developed as an option for readers.

if your request has not already been made, you should consider creating a "feed bear" request.

Be sure to reference this thread while you're at it. You have my vote at least.

Edit: https://feedback.logos.com/boards/logos-mobile-app 

For me, the “Show full anchor text” setting is available in my Windows desktop app, but not in my Android app. Also, while I can toggle between showing and not showing the anchor text in my Android app, the default continues to be showing the anchor text. Changing the default in Windows does not appear to affect the settings in my Android app. I cannot speak to whether the setting is available on the apple mobile app.

Thanks, Sam. I was going back and forth between my mobile and my desktop in answering and didn't confirm, as I should have, on the mobile what I had seen on the desktop.

In searching the forums I did come across some posts that indicated that the anchor text would only show on the mobile app if the book had been downloaded to the device. I tried removing the download of the book I had used in the images I had shown. That was not enough for me to see the anchor text disappear. But it's still possible, based on some if those other posts, that downloading the book to the device would then allow the anchor text to be visible.

After years of "playing around" with Logos, in which I basically used it as a glorified concordance and dictionary, I finally plunged into the deep end about five years ago and became a "serious" Logos user. As a pastor who spends a significant amount of time reading, studying, preaching, and teaching, learning to utilize Logos has been an enormous blessing for me. And yet, it is a love-hate relationship.

In James Clear's book, Atomic Habits, he says, "Create an environment where doing the right thing is easiest. Reduce the friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low habit is easy. Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When the friction is high habits are difficult. Prime your environment to make future actions easier."

When friction is high habits are difficult. Thus the reason that after five years of using Logos, I still prefer reading Kindle books. It is a given that e-ink display is far superior for sustained reading for hours at a time, and I'm not faulting Logos for not having an e-ink display. That is not my complaint. My complaint is that after all this time Logos has continued to make updates to the mobile app that don't address the primary purpose that most people are using the mobile app, which is simply to read.

When I want to do heavy lifting in Logos, I use my desktop. When I want to read a couple of hundred pages, I want to do so sitting in a chair or airplane on my iPad. Quickly accessing highlights is non-existent. Highlighting more often than not fails to show up, forcing me to close the app and restart it just to see the highlight I just made. All of this causes a friction that makes me not want to do it.

Using the Kindle app is frictionless. It just works. I posted about the inability to easily access highlights in the Logos 8 mobile app forum. It was acknowledged that it was a feature that didn't exist. In the Logos 9 mobile app forum someone raised the issue again. Now we are at Logos 10. It's almost as if no one in the mobile app department has ever used the Kindle app or is unaware of how simple and frictionless it is to use. Read a book, highlight a passage, quickly add a note, quickly tap one button and scroll through every single highlight and note in order (seeing the entire highlight and note), quickly tap the screen and return to page, tap a button at the bottom and quickly scroll through the book while not losing your place...this is the frictionless experience of the Kindle app.

If there is anyone monitoring this at Logos, could you please speak to whether or not the reading experience of Logos books (not sitting at a desk on a computer) but on the go (in elders meetings, small groups, bible studies, etc.) will ever be refined? Will there ever come a day that reading a Logos book will feel frictionless? If this is something Logos is just not interested in doing, that's fine as completely understand that every organization has to have priorities. Having gone from Logos 8 to now 10 with the answer always being, "use the web app on your iPad," I'm just beginning to think that the people that make the mobile app are people who are unaware of the friction that exists when compared to the frictionless experience of the Kindle app.

'Tis sad, but "Tis so true!  Well stated.