With the number of crosswords I do over the weekend I like the speed and convenience of the app, not least because of its anagram solver and word search function, but I do see where you coming from.
It reminds me of a time in Montreal, my partner and I were on a date with a colleague from work and her boyfriend. He started telling me, with real excitement, about a book called The Treatment by Mo Hader that he was reading. It turns out that he had literally never read a book, other than those he had to in school, until his early thirties, I know that's hard to believe but he swore it was true. He then went on to describe in minute detail the moment he first picked up a novel, basically just to peruse but, and I'm using his words now, it changed his life. He described to me the way the book, and in particular, the pages smelt and how they felt in his fingers, all the time with this look of pure bliss on his face. He continued in the same vain for the best part of the evening, waxing lyrical about his love of, mostly, hard back books and his joy was truly infectious.
This was back in the noughties but I remember it like it was yesterday.