For iPhone · Coming soon
Become well-read.
Short, carefully written lessons on history, science, philosophy, art, economics, and more. Read one, or listen to it, in about twelve minutes.
Conversant is a library of short lessons on the subjects an educated person is expected to know something about. Each one tells a real story, explains the ideas behind it, and names its sources.
Over time the pieces join up. The passing reference to Venice, or Hume, or Bach, at dinner or across a meeting table, becomes something you can take up rather than let pass.
The range
History and economics, physics and philosophy, painting, music, law, literature, and the living world. One hundred lessons across twelve fields today, growing toward five hundred. Each goes far enough to be worth repeating, and to survive the follow-up question.
The writing
Every lesson follows a single editorial standard: a real story told in order, ideas explained rather than asserted, sources named. Each includes something to do as well as read: a chart to explore, a construction to draw, a piece of music to follow.
The time
Most lessons take ten to fifteen minutes: long enough to understand something properly, short enough for a train, a lunch break, or the end of the day. A new lesson of the day is chosen each morning.
Listening
Every lesson is narrated in full, with the script adapted for the ear. Download a pathway before a flight or a commute, and listen with the screen off.
The library
Every lesson published so far, by field, with the time it takes to read.
From a lesson
A contract, a shipyard and a closing door in the city on the lagoon
Listen 0:54
Narration: AI voice
In August 1199, at the Rialto in Venice, a man named Zaccaria Stagnario declared before witnesses that he had received 300 pounds of Venetian pennies from another man, Giovanni Agadi. Stagnario would carry the money aboard a ship sailing in convoy to Constantinople, the greatest city in the Christian world, and do business there “and in any other place that seems good to me.” By the following Easter he was to return, or send the goods back with a reliable man. Within thirty days of arriving in Venice, he would hand Agadi the full 300 pounds, together with three parts of whatever profit God had given them, “with just and truthful account and without any fraud.” He would keep the remaining fourth for himself.
Every lesson ends with a question worth asking out loud. Here is one.
The Antikythera mechanism survived because a ship sank. What else might our picture of the past be missing because it was too useful, or too valuable, to survive?
The difference
Nothing in Conversant is there to keep you tapping. Everything in it is there to help you understand something, and remember it.
| Left out, on purpose | Kept in instead |
|---|---|
| An endless feed | A lesson of the day, chosen each morning |
| Two-minute cards to swipe through | Chapters you can finish over lunch |
| Summaries of other people’s books | Original lessons, with their sources named |
| Leaderboards | A question worth asking at dinner |
| Accounts and advertising | Progress that stays on your iPhone |
The app
Generous type, quiet color, and nothing competing for your attention. Conversant follows your iPhone’s text size, and turns to a dark page when your iPhone does.
Questions
The lesson of the day will be free. The full library will be available by subscription, with a free trial. Prices for your country will be shown in the app and on the App Store before you buy.
Conversant is in its final stages of preparation for the App Store. It is made for iPhone and needs iOS 26 or later.
Yes. The text and images of every lesson are built into the app. Narration downloads the first time you listen to a lesson, or ahead of time for a whole pathway, and then stays on your iPhone.
An AI voice, and the app says so. The script is adapted for the ear, so that an equation, for example, is read out in words.
No. There is nothing to sign up for, and your progress is stored on your iPhone.
Very little. There are no accounts, no ads, and no tracking. The Privacy Policy has the details.
More answers on the Support page.
Availability
Conversant is in its final stages of preparation. The lesson of the day will be free, and the full library will be available by subscription, with a free trial.
Coming soon to the App Store