If you love reading ebooks, did you know that your iPhone offers hundreds of apps that let you store and read ebooks, while some of them even let you buy or rent them? Here are five of the best ebook reader apps for iOS.
Note: Android users can check out the best ebook reader here.
1. tiReader
tiReader has big aspirations. The app is more than just an ebook reader app; it’s an omnivorous media viewer with support for annotation. That includes an annotation-friendly photo viewer that builds a table of contents based on a ZIP file folder structure, supports DJVU files with bookmarks and annotations, and an audiobook player with support for searchable bookmarks and annotations.
Users just looking for a basic ebook reader app might be overwhelmed by everything. There’s a lot to tiReader, and if you don’t need all of its annotation power, the annotations can make the app feel cluttered. However, there’s another reason why we think tiReader is one of the best ebook reader apps for iOS. It lets you access over a million free ebooks in OPDS-catalogs and Calibre servers, which alone should persuade you to try it.
2. Marvin 3
Marvin 3 can read ebooks from your library just as easily as a Calibre-powered OPDS server. Awesome unique features include extra screen darkening and screen warming for late-night reading; near-infinite color customization; Deep View, which reads your book and summarizes all the uses of a character or place name; and Karaoke, which flashes individual words on the screen quickly to enable speed reading.
Marvin also supports CBX files for comics and a TTS read-aloud function for Siri-powered audiobooks. We also need to praise the app’s highlighting feature, which has been recently improved in a big way. (By the way, Marvin’s third iteration brought over 150 new features and enhancements.) And lastly, know that Marvin is compatible with iPads as well, supporting features such as Split View, Slide Over, and plenty more.
3. KyBook 3
KyBook 3 offers awesome integration with existing free ebook libraries, like Project Gutenberg and many other OPDS catalogs, giving you access to an endless library of electronic books. However, importing your ebooks into Kybook 3 is a tad complicated. The app seems designed primarily for hosted OPDS ebook libraries, so copying an ePub from somewhere like Dropbox is a bit complex (but doable, of course).
Among other features, KyBook 3 comes with powerful annotation tools, letting you work with marked text and bookmarks. Then, you can draw annotations in any ebook (with support for Apple Pencil as well) and can export annotations in Markdown, HTML, PDF, and RTF. And lastly, we’d like to praise the app’s cataloging feature, letting you group ebooks by categories, tags, collections, and many other ways.
4. Hyphen
The best thing about Hyphen is its sleek, modern interface. The app’s ebook reader is functional and pleasant. Adding books is easy with built-in support for OPDS and cloud services. The display can get incredibly dark with just the swipe of a finger. That’s perfect for late-night reading in low-light settings. Default color customization is virtually infinite, and power users can dig deeper with support for CSS stylesheets.
Hyphen also sports one of the largest font libraries we’ve seen in an ebook reader app for iOS. Highlighting and annotation tools are available but require a few taps to access the advanced features. This is a good UX trade-off if you only want one-color highlighting, but it might annoy the annotation fanatics among us. Highlights can be easily exported as HTML files, providing backup for detailed annotations.
5. Bluefire Reader
Bluefire Reader is our final recommendation in this guide to the best ebook reader apps for iOS. With functional annotation tools, built-in Dropbox connectivity, an attractive reading mode, and flexible text display options, Bluefire Reader promises a lot. However, keep in mind that we’re talking about an ebook reader app that lacks across many fields in comparison to our previous recommendations.
Still, that does mean that we don’t recommend Bluefire. On the contrary, if you’re looking for a one-time purchase, this app is a fantastic option. It covers the basics just right, giving you a bit of everything – without being overly technical. Of course, paying once means that you don’t have to increase your monthly cost, which is one of the strongest selling points of this app.
Wrapping Up
Now that you’ve read about the five best ebook readers for iOS in 2021, we’d like to recommend a couple more resources. More precisely, don’t forget to check out the best ebook readers for Windows and Linux, that are sure to make your reading experience the best it can possibly be.
Isaac is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience covering the latest technological innovations. Mainly focused on Apple-related software and hardware systems, his aspiration is to explore all the ways today’s digital world intertwines with our everyday life.
Our latest tutorials delivered straight to your inbox
