The app both stores crowned in the same year
Imprint launched in 2019 and spent 2023 collecting the industry's two biggest stamps: Google Play's overall App of the Year, the year everyone expected ChatGPT to take it, and an Editors' Choice badge on the App Store. The format earns the fuss. A chapter is a run of illustrated panels, closer to a great explainer video in still frames than to an e-book, and each one ends inside two minutes. Courses cover psychology, philosophy, history, personal finance, health, and science; some are built with named academics, like the philosophy course with Professor John Kaag. Daily quizzes pull old material back up before it fades.
The right user in your house is probably you
Every kid learns phone norms from the phones they can see, and the phone they see most is yours. Imprint is one of the few apps that makes the visible version of you on a phone something worth copying: reading about the Federal Reserve for two minutes instead of refreshing a feed. If the family problem you're solving is your own scroll habit, this is a strong replacement at the exact moments the habit fires, in line, on the couch, at pickup.
That cuts one way for TikTok-era teens too. A rule handed down while you scroll lands differently than a rule handed down while you learn.
For a teen, it works as a bridge. Keep it a bridge
The teen who watches Kurzgesagt by choice is the teen Imprint fits: 13 and up, curious, allergic to textbooks. The book summaries are the strongest on-ramp. A visual walkthrough of Atomic Habits or Sapiens takes minutes and tells a teen whether the full book is worth their time, and the ones that land become a library list. The failure mode is stopping at the trailer for everything; if summaries start substituting for every full read, the app is working against the goal. The consumption-versus-creation line matters more than any screen-time number, and this guide on moving kids from zombie mode to maker mode digs into it.
Free alternatives cover different ground
Khan Academy is free and goes deeper on school subjects, with full problem sets instead of panels. Brilliant charges similar money but makes you solve rather than read, which is better for STEM-leaning kids. Imprint owns the lane those two skip: humanities, psychology, money, and big nonfiction, packaged for someone with two minutes.
Only the yearly price makes sense
The monthly plan is $15.99, more than most streaming services. The yearly plan runs about $75 to $100 and is the only version of this purchase worth defending, and only after the free tier proves the habit is real. One more data point before you pay: iOS users rate it 4.8; Android users land at 4.2. Same content, so test it on your own phone first.
