Ask

Getting stuck on a term halfway through an explanation is half of what studying alone is like. Going off to look it up somewhere else is what breaks the thread, so you ask right there and get the answer with your lecture in front of you.

One chat per subject

Mina is a single chat, and it opens from any screen: with the Ask bubble in the top corner, or with ⌘J (Ctrl+J on Windows). It slides in at the side, over whatever you were looking at, without taking you anywhere else, and one button makes it fill the screen. On a lecture's page, the Ask card opens it in place of the page.

There is one conversation per subject, that is, per folder, and it is kept: come back tomorrow and it is still there. From a lecture you choose what you are asking about: This class, The subject as a whole or Everything. Outside a folder, on the home screen or in settings, there is a general conversation about all your classes.

Mina knows where you are: the lecture and slide you have open, the note, the summary or the practice session in front of you. A small label next to the field says so, and its close button drops it if you would rather she did not use it. And if you select a piece of the summary, the explanation or one of her answers, Ask appears and takes it along as a quote; in a note, Ask sits in its toolbar.

About the slide you are looking at

While you study, the raised hand in the dock, or the ? key, opens the same chat in Mina's column, and the voice pauses. If you had a piece of the script selected, it goes in as a quote above the question: it is the part you did not understand, and you do not have to type it again.

When you close the chat, if the voice was speaking, Mina says a line to pick things up again and repeats the paragraph from the start. The slide on screen also reaches her as an image: ask about a chart, a table or a diagram and she answers with what it shows.

Where each answer comes from

Before answering, Filmina searches by words for the slides that are relevant, in the classes you are asking about, and the model picks the ones among them that actually answer the question. With those, your notes and the material you added, it writes the answer, which reaches you bit by bit as it is written.

Above the answer it says where it came from: "From your classes", "From your notes" or "From your material". When none of that is enough, it answers anyway from what is generally known about the subject, and flags it: "Beyond your material". That way you know what was in your own material and what was not. Below come the slides it used, small: tapping one opens it large, and from there Study it takes you into the lecture.

The conversation carries on: "and an example?" is understood in light of the question you just asked. Under the latest answer there are Simpler, An example and Quiz me, so you do not have to type them. And when the chat is empty, it offers the summary topics of the last lecture you opened as first questions.

Getting things done, not just answers

If you ask "quiz me on what I got wrong", the reply is not text: a card appears with the practice session ready, which lecture and how many minutes, and a button to start. When you finish, the result comes back to the chat, with what you missed and an offer to explain it another way. She can also open a review, take you to a slide, show you how you are doing in each lecture or ask you a question right there.

Whatever she suggests without being asked stays as a card, and you decide. Saving something to your notes can be undone, and changing the exam date or the lectures in the plan shows what there was and what there will be, and waits for you to say yes. Mina never deletes anything.

Dictating the question

Next to the field there is a microphone: you say the question instead of typing it. It is turned into text in the cloud, without keeping the audio, and lands in the field without being sent, so you can fix the word it misheard. If you send with the microphone open, it closes it, turns it into text and sends it.

How many questions

Questions to Mina have a monthly cap, depending on your plan: 30 on Free and 300 on Pro. When you run out, she tells you the day they come back.

What you ask is useful later

Asking is the best sign of what is still shaky. The slides used to answer you are among the first to come back in Review, and Practice starts with the ones you asked about while studying.