book reading app comparison and question?

By tyler chambliss, 1 March, 2023

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

So I'm looking at options to move away from a victor reader to just iOS apps. I'm looking at Bookshare reader, Voice Dream Reader, and Dolphin EasyReader. What's the best one of those? Ideally I'd also like something that can play audio books from a folder of files continuously as well, so say something downloaded that's a bunch of MP3 files or whatever.

Options

Comments

By Brooke

6 months 4 weeks ago

I'll admit to not knowing much about Dolphin, so hopefully someone who uses it will comment. BookShare Reader seems promising, but right now, it has some bugs that make it unreliable. The main one I encounter is that every time I open the app to read, it starts at the beginning of my book, it doesn't seem to be saving my place from when i used it last. I've used Voice Dream in the past to read books in MP3 format, and it's worked well.

By Jeff

6 months 4 weeks ago

I highly recommend Voice Dream Reader. It works as you desire, reading multiple files continuously, if you zip them into a single zip archive. Leave them zipped in the archive, VDR will read them from there, treating the archive as a single book. It remembers your place in the book (called resume) and supports bookmarks. It displays both elapsed time and remaining time for the entire book, not each file. And it supports multiple cloud storage options for downloading books.

I gave up using my VRStream several years ago and use VDR for listening to all of my unprotected audiobooks. The other apps I use are: the Audible app for listening to Audible books; the BARD Mobile app for listening to books from NLS (US only); and Libby for listening to Overdrive books available through my local public library. All of these apps are accessible and I am happy with my decision to switch from my VRStream to my iPhone.

By Ryder

6 months 3 weeks ago

LibriVox audiobooks pro is another very good app. The vast number of audiobooks are read by humans. It is inexpensive with no subscription.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/librivox-audio-books-pro/id662558935

I also like Audible. I use Voice Dream and Speech Central for articles but never books. Dolphin Easy reader is free so give it a try. I’ve got it but mostly use other apps.

BARD Mobile is my most used audiobook app. If you have vision issues and live in the US it is the place to be, oceans of audiobooks read by humans.