Self Help Classics

Improve your life, achieve success and find lasting happiness with your personal growth portable library, the best selling iPhone and iPad personal improvement app.

Apple Staff Favorite, worldwide bestselling ebook app since 2009 with thousands of 5-star reviews, having changed the life of countless users. Self Help Classics is the amazing portable library of classic masterpieces on personal improvement, daily inspiration or business success. Years-worth-of-reading carefully selected inspiring masterpieces from famous thinkers, inventors and billionaires of the past.

Self Help Classics was crafted for retina display devices but remains great looking on non-retina iPads and iPhones. It requires iOS 5.0 or more recent - this way I was able to strip away legacy features and old code, and bring a vastly improved user experience.

What's New

Cool new features
  1. New! Improved for iPhone 5 : read more on the larger screen
  2. Text-to-speech with latest generation computer generated voice (optional purchase)
  3. gorgeous new UI optimized for ease of use and accessibility
  4. improved reading with 5 great font options
  5. brightness slider and night mode theme
  6. library view has a great new shelf-based look - switch between compact and descriptive by toggling the "eye" button on the home page
  7. books now have a "last opened" bookmark, easily accessible from the table of contents. Reading progress is marked discreetly above the book cover on the library page
  8. search is now more intuitive and narrowed to in-book (accessible from the table of contents) or in-chapter
  9. if the 32 already-paid-for classic inspirational masterpieces are not enough, 5 great premium packs are available as in-app-purchases, further growing your collection to 55 volumes
Improved old features
  1. rewritten gesture based page swipe, for ease of use and responsiveness
  2. improved quote navigation and sharing engine - looks better than ever, and allows you to share your saved quotes by Email or Facebook
  3. improved typography and color themes
  4. .. improved everything, actually

Huge self help library preloaded

  • Over 30 great self help masterpieces prepaid, including: "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill, "The Science of Getting Rich" by Wallace Wattles, "The Master Key System" by Charles F. Haanel, "The Art of Public Speaking" by Dale Carnegie, "Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie", "Letters from a Stoic" by Seneca, "Self Help" by Samuel Smiles, "Secret Door to Success" by Florence S. Shinn, "The Way to Wealth" by Benjamin Franklin. See the full list in the table of contents page.
  • 5 premium packs available as in-app-purchases in this version, waiting for you:
    1. Premium Pack 1 - get inspired with the Life and Work of Henry Ford, a Message to Garcia, the shogun's Common Sense or tips on How to Succeed (4 books)
    2. Premium Pack 2 - learn strategy, secrets of business success and the science of advertising (5 books)
    3. Premium Pack 3 - learn peace of mind and serenity from the greatest stoic philosophers (5 books)
    4. Premium Pack 4 - great men: thoughts and autobiographies of Mark Twain, Edison, Leonardo da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin. (4 books)
    5. Premium Pack 5 - inspiration from Orison Swett Marden, Henry Drummond, Ralph W. Trine and others (5 books)

Screenshots



F.A.Q.

Some features are hidden, others might not be so obvious. Please take a look at the following - it will help you get up to speed more quickly.

How do I...

Try out the voice feature

The text-to-speech optional feature is computational intensive, causing noticeable delays between speech fragments. Older devices (iPad 1, iPhone 3GS and even iPhone 4) might not fare well to the task. You can, therefore, test it for free - it will read a few sentences and stop automatically afterwards.

Purchase a Premium pack or optional feature

Inside Self Help Classics, on the first (library) page (the one with the thumbnail covers of all the books), you'll see a "Store" button on the left side. Clicking it will pop up the Store window which lists the additional in-app purchases and lets you purchase them. If you are inside a book, you'll need to navigate back to the library page in order to access the Store window.

Mark down favorite passages

Inside a book chapter, select your favorite fragment (standard iOS gesture - double-tap on a word, then drag the selection margins). When done, tap the "Save Quote" option from the context menu. The fragment will be marked up (yellow background) and saved as a quote, accessible from the quote navigation or the bookmarks window.

Navigate inside a chapter
  1. you can scroll like in Safari
  2. press the play(autoscroll) button
  3. swipe left-right for the next/previous pages
Change font size, font type or brightness
  1. tap the cogwheel button in the chapter view
  2. or use a pinch gesture in the chapter view for it
Read in full-screen, distraction free
  1. double tap the chapter view to enter fullscreen mode
  2. or use a pinch gesture in the chapter view for it
Move to next/previous chapter
  1. from the options popup with the previous/next chapter buttons
  2. at chapter start by swiping to right : previous
  3. at chapter end by swiping to left : next
Go to where I left off
  1. use the bookmark in the top-left corner of the library view
  2. each book has a "last opened" bookmark, above the table of contents
  3. most recently opened book has a white border in the library view
Save favorite bookmarks or quotes
  1. add simple bookmarks using the button in the options popup
  2. save quotes by selecting the text in the chapter and choosing "Save quote" form the popup context menu
View, visit or share favorite quotes
  1. Use the quote button on the library page
  2. Share the quote on Facebook or by email

I can't...

Run the App

The app was was fully rewritten to take advantage of the best and latest features in iOS 5+. If it doesn't start on your device, it's probably because you are running an older iOS version(find out which by looking in Settings->General->About->Version), and iTunes should have prevented you from updating the app on your device. You should update to a more recent version of iOS.

See the Premium Packs I've purchased

When you reinstall the app or move it to another device, you might no longer see your premium pack purchases. You should press "Refresh purchases" button on the Store screen.

Find Old Quotes and Bookmarks

Sadly, backwards compatibility with old-format bookmarks would have added extra complexity and instability. Therefore, old bookmarks and quotes are automatically removed after updating.

Find the Chapter Navigation Buttons

They are not gone, only moved out of sight to allow a better reading experience in the chapter view.

Chapter navigation buttons and add bookmark button were moved to the options popup; similarly, the back(to table of contents) button is only visible outside fullscreen mode.

Search across all books

Most users never used this feature. By removing the cross-book search, the interface is cleaner and more intuitive.

Testimonials

  • ...sounds too good to be true... but it's good and it's true. - Incredible iPhone Apps For Dummies

  • great way to get access to lots of excellent content at a low price. This book is[...] well-made and well-stocked. - AppAdvice.com The best apps for reading on the iPad
  • Amazing app full of super valuable wisdom. The app should be worth $100.
  • A collection of some of the best motivational ever written. Some are very hard to find books. Love having them all at my finger tips anytime, anywhere!
  • Wish i was reading these from a very young age. Very mind-opening, these books could change the way you look at the world.
  • This is an amazing app with books that can make you millions. Very convenient.

Like it? Or not?

I put a lot of work and effort into this update, and I think it's the best version of Self Help Classics to date. I know you'll think the same once you see the gorgeous typography, the elegant unobtrusive reading mode, the great looking bookshelf.

If you like it as well, don't forget to leave a rating on iTunes.

If there's you find anything wrong, you should use my contact form to report a bug. Otherwise I might not see it, and won't be able to reply or fix it.

Other Credits

Typefaces

Libraries

Copyright © 2009-2012 Alexandru Brie, Cognitive Bits Software srl.