Say a word out loud and the definition is there, even with no signal. Moonlight files it under the book you're reading, brings it back just before you'd forget it, and lets you pass the good ones to friends.
A manuscript on which more than one text has been written, with the earlier writing incompletely erased and still visible
Filed under Middlemarch, p. 21201What it is
Say a word out loud and the definition is already there. No signal needed, no tab to switch to. Moonlight files it under the book you were reading and brings it back when you're closest to forgetting it.
02The loop
Three screens, in the order you actually use them. Catch the word where you met it, file it under what you were reading, and meet it again before it goes.
IThe mic
Speak, photograph, or type. Recognition runs on the phone, so a word you meet on a plane resolves exactly as fast as one you meet at home.
Voice · Camera · Keyboard
IIThe bank
Every word is filed under the book you were reading when you met it, so the list reads like a record of what you've been doing, not a pile of flashcards.
WordNet 3.1, bundled offline
IIIThe recall
A short quiz picks the words you're closest to forgetting. Canonical SM-2 scheduling, the same algorithm the serious review apps are built on.
SM-2 spaced repetition
03Read with friends
A Social tab for the people you swap books with. Find them by username or QR code, see who's keeping a streak, and pass on the words worth keeping.
IThis week
Who saved the most words since the week began, with a podium for the top three and a cheer for anyone keeping a streak. Everyone starts from zero each week, so it's never won for good.
Weekly table · Cheers
IIShared
Share a word from your bank and it lands with your friends, ready to save to theirs in one tap. Only the words you choose — the rest of your bank stays yours.
Shared words
IIIYour circle
Pick a username when you sign up. Add friends by name, by friend code, or by scanning their QR code across the table — even with the iPhone's own camera.
@username · QR · Contacts
04The word map
Everything you've saved, laid out as a sphere you can turn. Words from the same book pull together, and the ones you've mastered wear a ring. Drag it.
Moonlight's default theme has no hues to hand out, so shelves separate on a brightness ramp instead of colour, and colour stays free to mean something else.
Mastery used to recolour the word outright, which made the brightest things on screen a scatter of finished words. As a ring it still reads at a glance, and the eye goes back to the clusters.
The map is for noticing, not measuring: that one book gave you nine words in a week, or that a shelf you thought you'd finished is still half unlearned.
Map legend
05Specification
The short version, for anyone who would rather know exactly what they are installing before they install it.
06Availability
Moonlight is in TestFlight now and finishing up for the App Store. It works on a plane, and it asks you to sign in once — so your words follow you to a new phone.