Deepstash is a service that lets you read shortened versions of different media types. The App Store description states, “Learn something new in just 5 minutes, with daily bite-sized knowledge from books, articles, videos, podcasts & more.”
I heard about this app during a MacSparky Labs member meetup earlier this month. One of the participants talked about how he used it and enjoyed it.
I was intrigued by the idea of a curated distilled ideas service, so I checked out the app. It seemed like it might be useful, so I subscribed to the Pro version for a year ($39.99, discounted from $89.99)
I thought using Deepstash might help my personal growth and provide a source of ideas I could turn into blog posts.
The Pros
1. I’ve looked at many topics and been impressed with the helpfulness of the ideas listed. Well-curated summaries of the main ideas are broken down into bite-sized main points and bullet points.
It’s a quick way to survey a lot of material quickly. It would take hours to read the entire articles and books.
I can see myself using some of this material as the basis for new blog posts as I’m exposed to more ideas that resonate with me. I’ve already added a number of the ideas I’ve read into my PKM system for future use.
2. Ideas are presented in an attractive style. On the iPad, one idea with sub-points is presented in a graphic at a time. The ideas that come before and after are shaded. Scrolling through the ideas with your finger or an Apple Pencil is easy.
When an idea is shared, it is presented with a colorful pastel background and a graphic. It reminds me of the way Readwise presents quotes for review.
3. Sharing is an option. A sharing button for each idea lists apps, messages, email, saving to file, etc. However, this feature seems to work inconsistently.
The iOS app does a decent job of sharing text (but not the associated graphics) with the Craft app but does not seem to function with DevonThink or Readwise. There is a “copy text” option that helps facilitate some workarounds, but it’s a lot more hassle than being able just to share ideas using the sharing menu. All graphics are left out unless you turn the whole section into a PDF. So, if I want to preserve a particular idea module with graphics, the best way to do it seems to be to take a screenshot of the module, then transfer that into a PKM app, in my case, DevonThink (which also automatically OCRs the file).
Another problem with sharing in Deepstash is that none of the shared ideas include the source and author, only a link to the Deepstash database. That’s a real pain when I want to save an idea to my PKM system in DevonThink or for a blog idea in Craft. I have to go to the shared document and manually enter this information.
The Cons
1. Poor sharing compatibility and lack of authors and sources. As I mentioned above, the sharing feature does not work with some common apps. And the lack of including the source and author in idea sharing is almost a deal killer.
2. The “streak” feature is annoying. Whenever I open the Deepstash app, I’m confronted with a full-page streaks function that announces whether I’ve been on a multi-day streak or broken my streak. In addition, it provides me options for additional “makeup work” to reanimate my streak.
I don’t want a streak function in a reviewing-new-ideas app, and I don’t want that as a mandatory function. It annoys me and distracts me from what I want to do: review ideas.
I wrote to the developers asking for some way to turn it off. Apparently, it’s hard-wired into the app. The response I received acknowledged that people like me found it aggravating, but that in the future, they planned to improve it. I’m not sure what that meant.
My Overall Evaluation and Recommendation
• My use of the app so far confirms that it can be a useful learning tool. It can save you hours and hours of reading time by distilling the best ideas of a source into 5-minute bullet points. That’s valuable.
• I think the service is a great idea, but imperfectly implemented. The lack of including the author and source of ideas seems to be a gross oversight of a crucial feature. I don’t want to manually add this information to each idea I decide to save somewhere else.
• The in-your-face full-page streaks obsession drives me nuts, but maybe it won’t matter to you, or you’ll even appreciate it if you’re trying to develop a habit using the app.
• Overall, I think there’s real value to be had here, but be prepared to work around the sharing limitations. Despite its difficulties, I’ll continue to use the app regularly to mine the wealth of material here.
• Will I resubscribe at the end of the year? Unless the sharing difficulties are corrected, probably not.
UPDATE: After attempting to use the Deepstash service for several weeks, I canceled it. It didn’t fit into my Knowledge Management System by making it too much of a hassle to record information sources. And over time, the “Streaks” feature drove me crazy.