Coming to the App Store
zinked
A reading app for iPhone and iPad. This short book explains it, and each page lets you try it.
Any file in
zinked turns anything with words in it into a book. Add an EPUB, a PDF, a Word document, a Markdown file, a web page or a photo of a page, and it comes back as clean pages that you can read, write on and search.
A file with no cover gets a typeset one, and you can design your own. The file you added is always kept.
This page was made the same way. Resize the window, or turn your phone, and the text is cut again around your place.
Type and paper
The words are the author’s. How they look is up to you. Change the paper, the typeface, the size, the spacing or the margins, and the book is set again around the sentence you were reading.
Press the dot in the corner. Change the typeface, the size and the paper.
Write on the page
With an Apple Pencil, you just write. With a finger, pick up the pen first. A rough line under some words snaps into a clean underline, a loop into a circle, and a scribble crosses the words out.
Marks are tied to the words, not to a spot on the screen, so they stay exact when the type changes size.
Every mark goes into the book’s notebook, which can be copied out as Markdown.
Press Pen and draw a line under some words, or a loop around them. Or select some words. Then open the notebook.
Listen
Anything in your library can be read aloud while the page keeps up. The sentence being said is washed with colour, the pages turn by themselves, and the speed is yours.
A book has one place, not two. Where the voice stops is where reading carries on.
Press Listen at the top. Your browser reads this page aloud, in its own voice, and the page follows.
This browser has no voice to read with, so there is no Listen button here.
Papers by ear
A research paper is hard to follow by ear. So a paper gets a short orientation, heard first, and an easy listening edition, written by Claude. Equations are said in words, and tables and figures are described instead of skipped.
The entropy of X is minus the sum, over every outcome x, of the probability of x times its logarithm to base two.
| Source | Entropy, in bits |
|---|---|
| A fair coin | 1.000 |
| A coin that lands heads nine times in ten | 0.469 |
| A fair die | 2.585 |
Three sources and their entropy in bits. A fair coin, one. A coin that lands heads nine times in ten, 0.469. A fair die, 2.585.
Press Listen here. The equation and the table are washed while they are said in words. Switch to As written and the voice only says they are there.
Papers and articles are prepared by themselves; a book of your own only when you ask.
Other readers
Give anything you read one to five stars. zinked works out which work a file is, from its ISBN, DOI or arXiv number, or its title and author. So your rating lines up with everyone else’s, though no two people have the same file.
Pick a username to see average ratings, short reviews, and how many people are reading the same thing. No email, no real name. Your own documents stay private.
Rate this book. The stars stay on this page.
Agents
Your library is a folder of ordinary files: Markdown chapters, with your highlights, notes, ratings and reading position in JSON beside them. Nothing is locked away.
So an AI agent can read along with you. A command-line tool and an MCP server let it search the library, read a chapter, see where you are and leave notes, marked with a badge.
inked highlight "zinked" \
--quote "a folder of ordinary files" \
--note "This is why I can read along with you." \
--author agent:claude-codeNo agent is reading this page, so the button does what the command says.
zinked plus
zinked is coming to the App Store, for iPhone and iPad. Reading, marks, notebooks and listening to the page as it is written are free.
zinked plus takes away the weekly limit on listening editions, for the papers and articles you add and any book you ask for.