The limits
A product that does not say what it cannot do makes you find out halfway through the night before the exam. So here is the list, and it gets updated when something drops off it.
Where it runs
- In the browser, on any computer, tablet or phone with an up-to-date one. There is no app of its own to install yet: the closest thing is adding it to your home screen, as explained in Getting started.
- Apps for Mac, Windows, iPhone and iPad are on the way. When they land, you will see it in What's new.
- It needs a connection. The explanation, the voice and the answers are made in the cloud, so without internet you cannot study.
What it can read
- PDFs and decks (.pptx, .ppt, .key and .odp) up to 30 MB. Decks are converted to PDF on the server, and a Keynote file that cannot be converted does not get in: export it to PDF first.
- It needs text. If the deck is a scanned image, Mina tells you she cannot read it instead of making things up. If you have the original, upload that.
- Images, charts, diagrams and tables it does read: the model sees each slide as an image, on top of its text, and explains them along with it. A figure that is only decoration gets left alone.
- A .docx is not studied slide by slide. It does go in as class material, along with books, audio and YouTube videos, so Mina takes it into account when she explains and answers.
- It explains in Spanish and English, in whichever language the deck is written in.
- It does not search the internet. Mina answers with the deck, your notes, your material and what the model knows about the subject.
The Free plan's limits
Free asks for no card, but it has limits: 60 minutes of explanation to get started and 20 a month after that; up to 10 documents, with the first 100 slides of each read; 30 questions to Mina and one practice session per document a month; one hour of transcription a month; and one device at a time. When you hit one, the app tells you.
Pro raises them. What it includes and what it costs is on the home page, and the conditions are in the terms.
What cannot be taken out yet
The audio and the script stay in the app: there is no way to download the narration as a file or the full script to print it, and there is no export of your data yet. What does come out is the summary, which copies as text so you can paste it wherever you keep notes, and an exam date, which goes into your Google or Outlook calendar.
And it can be wrong
The explanation is written by a language model in the cloud. When you study it stays with what the slide says, and the code verifies that nothing was left unexplained; but verifying that everything is there is not verifying that it is right. If the voice and the slide disagree, the slide wins.
In the chats, whatever comes from your material is labeled in the answer: "From the deck", "From your notes" or "From your material". What does not carry that label comes from what the model knows about the subject, and that is where you read with one eye more open.