Mark II is a bookmark with a brain that comes off. The bookmark stays in the book. The highlighter clips out of it: brush it over a passage to save the text, or hold it and speak to save a thought. Everything lands in an iOS app, filed by book and searchable.
It costs $159 and ships only to the US and Canada. Founder Eason Tang pitches it as a way to keep a quote without picking up your phone and losing the chapter.
$159
The 3-minute keynote shows the idea, but not much actual use:
How it works
- Scan: hold the button and brush over a passage. A light confirms the capture. It works on paper and, according to Mark, on e-ink and other screens.
- Speak: hold to record a voice note, release to send.
- Sync: the highlighter connects to the phone over Bluetooth. It stores captures when the phone is out of range and syncs them later.
- Revisit: the app sorts quotes by book and theme. You can search a half-remembered line or chat with your highlights.
Scan a book's ISBN once (beta) and later captures file themselves under that title. The app says Mark AI answers only from what you captured.
Specs
| Parts | Bookmark and detachable highlighter with scanner, mic and button |
| Materials | Aluminium and ABS, "weighted like AirPods", in white or black |
| Battery | About 1 week of heavy reading, USB-C |
| Connection | Bluetooth only, no Wi-Fi. Each device pairs to 1 account at a time |
| App | iOS 17 or later. No Android |
| Export | Readwise and Notion integrations, CSV export |
| Claimed accuracy | 99% text accuracy, with missing letters or words reconstructed |
| Data | Encrypted, stored on AWS in North America |
The languages claim doesn't match across Mark's own pages. The website says 100+ languages, handwriting included. The App Store listing says 30+, with handwriting in beta. I'd trust the App Store.
Price and subscription
- Hardware: $159, with no EU price. Orders are refundable until shipment.
- App: a free download. Highlighting, audio capture, auto-organisation and basic AI chat are free.
- Subscription: optional, for "the heavier AI features and advanced integrations". Mark doesn't publish the price in the places I checked, so ask before you count on those features.
Background
The first Mark went viral in 2025 at a reported $129. Tang says the team then listened to the feedback and redesigned the product from the ground up. A $1 million raise was reported around the May 2026 launch of Mark II, with no named investors I could verify. The seller is Mark, Inc, a very young company.
Pre-launch praise came from Joe Weisenthal at Bloomberg, Scott Belsky of A24 and Sam Bowman of Stripe Press. Those are reactions to the announcement, quoted on Mark's own site, not reviews of the product.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Captures a quote with no phone in the hand, the 1 thing a phone can't do.
- Voice notes next to quotes, so the thought stays with its source.
- Works across paper and screens, if the claim holds.
- Offline capture, and a battery that lasts a week.
- Feeds Readwise and Notion instead of asking you to move everything to a new app.
Cons
- Almost no independent evidence. The App Store has 2 ratings, and I found no hands-on test of the accuracy claim.
- Late and quiet. Shipping was set to start on 22nd September. Steph Lundberg at Support Human ordered in July, still had nothing on 15th October, and reports a firmware delay announced only on X.
- Young software. The app gets frequent updates, and recent ones still fix Bluetooth problems. App Store reviewers also ask for basics such as typed notes and editable book titles.
- iPhone only, US and Canada only.
- Cloud storage in North America, which matters if you scan private documents from Europe.
- A single-purpose gadget to charge and carry, with an open question about how long a small startup supports it.
Alternatives
| Option | What you get | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Readwise phone app | Photo a page, OCR the passage, spaced review | Your phone is back in your hand |
| Scanmarker | Scanning pen that types into any app | No library by book |
| C-Pen | Scanning pens, some with read-aloud | Built for reading support |
| Kindle highlights | Free, exact, synced | Ebooks only |
My own habit is Kindle highlights into Readwise, see Readwise | helps me retain what I read. Mark II only solves a problem for the books that don't exist on Kindle.
Who it's for
- People who read a lot on paper and write from their highlights: researchers, writers, students.
- Readers who already keep a Readwise or Notion library and lose everything from their physical books.
It's not for someone who reads mainly on Kindle, or for anyone in Europe today without a forwarding address, and that route leaves the warranty and returns unclear.
Buying
- Official only: the Mark II order page. Batches 1 and 2 are closed and shipping. Batch 3 is due by 15th November 2026, and Mark warns that orders in a batch ship at different times.
- From Germany: no direct shipping. Add import VAT if you forward it.
- Check first: the privacy policy and the App Store listing, whose review count is the quickest sign of how many units are out.
Verdict
A smart idea with an honest problem to solve: the phone is the worst thing to bring into a reading session. I like the voice notes more than the AI chat. But at $159 I'd wait. Scan accuracy on real pages decides everything here, and nobody independent has shown it yet. Come back when Batch 3 owners post real tests and it ships to Europe.
Further reading
The critical account from a customer who ordered in July:
The specs and shipping FAQ: