# Listen 2 Reader — Listen2 - Offline Neural TTS > Offline neural text-to-speech app with advanced voice tuning and document import. (iPhone/iPad app by Zach Swift.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/listen-2-reader/id6755753624 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Zach Swift](https://appshunter.io/developer/1845578794) - Category: Books - Price: Free with in-app purchases - Rating: 4.90/5 from 10 App Store ratings · 6 written reviews indexed - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 18.2 · 182 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2026-01-15 - Data updated: 2026-09-09 - Monetization: free with in-app purchases - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/listen-2-reader/id6755753624/reviews.md ## What is Listen 2 Reader? Listen2 runs neural text-to-speech directly on your iPhone or iPad without connecting to cloud services. No subscription or accounts — just a 7 day free trial and then a one-time purchase. Most text-to-speech apps either use the tried and true system voices or require monthly payments for cloud processing. Listen2 runs neural voice models locally using your iOS device's CPU and Apple Neural Engine, giving you natural-sounding speech without ongoing costs or privacy tradeoffs. WHAT MAKES LISTEN2 DIFFERENT Multi-Voice Engines, One App Piper provides reliable neural voices across 13 languages. Supertonic offers a fresh take on a voice engine — flow-matching models running on Apple's Neural Engine via CoreML for natural rhythm and expressive speech. Choose from 100+ voices in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Greek, Hindi, Vietnamese, Swedish and Hungarian. More coming. Voice Tuning Adjust the model parameters of any voice to suit your preferences. Save presets to switch between profiles. Preview pronunciation rules before saving them. Import Anything PDF, EPUB, DOCX, DAISY, markdown, plain text, clipboard, or web articles. Share from Safari and Listen2 extracts the article text. Paywalled content works (even sites on which other major TTS apps fail) when shared from a browser where you are logged in. Machine Learning Word Sync CTC forced alignment matches audio to text at the word level. Watch each word highlight as it is spoken — across Latin and non-Latin scripts alike. Highlighting engine newly re-build to be lean and efficient that's dramatically easier on your battery life. Smart Document Reading Multi-column layout handling, footnote filtering (for PDF files), hyphenated word rejoining. AI Vision for scanned PDFs. Full EPUB, DOCX, and DAISY support. Figure Descriptions On-device AI vision generates spoken descriptions of figures, charts, and photos as you listen. For non-English documents, descriptions translate automatically via Apple's on-device Translation framework. (Works with EPUB and PDF as a first roll-out) Pronunciation Rules Fix how any word is spoken without changing display text. Rules for names, terms, or abbreviations. Live preview before saving. Built-in presets for footnote markers. Global or per-document. Doesn't break highlighting. True Offline Privacy Processing, normalization, and synthesis all happen on-device. Documents never leave your phone. No uploads, account, or tracking. FEATURES - 100+ neural voices across 13 languages, plus dozens of Apple system voices - 3+ engines: Piper (broad language support), Supertonic (high-fidelity CoreML, flow-matching models), and Kokoro. Apple system voices offer efficient, quality options if using enhanced or premium models. - Voice tuning with saveable presets - Word-by-word or sentence highlighting - PDF, EPUB, DOCX, DAISY, TXT, Markdown support - AI figure descriptions with auto-translation (PDF and EPUB support) - Collections with intros, cover art, and auto-advance - Web Article Collections — batch articles into an auto-playing queue - Clipboard import and Siri shortcut support - 0.5x to 2.5x playback speed (Kokoro supports up to 1.4x because of real-time constraint) - Background playback with lock screen controls - Import from Files, links, Share Extension, or other apps - Export any document as a plain-text file from the library - Pronunciation rules with live preview - Atkinson Hyperlegible and OpenDyslexic fonts - Full VoiceOver support with rotor navigation and Magic Tap - Elapsed and remaining time in now playing & reader view. WHO IT'S FOR - Commuters turning drive time into learning time - Students reviewing papers and textbooks - Professionals handling confidential documents privately - VoiceOver users looking for a fully accessible TTS reader - Readers with dyslexia who benefit from audio-visual sync - Anyone tired of TTS subscriptions One-time purchase. 7-day free trial. No subscriptions. ## Key features - On-device neural text-to-speech - 100+ voices in 13 languages - Voice tuning and presets - Import PDF, EPUB, DOCX, and more - Word-by-word highlighting - AI figure descriptions - True offline privacy ## Pricing and in-app purchases Base price: Free. **One-time purchases** | Purchase | Price | Type | | --- | --- | --- | | Listen2 Full Access | $19.99 | one-time | ## Recent user reviews (6 of 6) All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/listen-2-reader/id6755753624/reviews.md ### 5/5 — This it is finally. *2026-08-29* After trying about 30 apps this one has the voices and smooth reading that I was looking for. I have to say those voice are amazing. How about adding the reading speed option at the bottom the right next to the fast forward option. Going to setting to find it makes me stop reading. ### 4/5 — Possibly the best offline TTS app *2026-05-28* Amazing work. Is supertonic running fully on the neural engine (CoreML)? If so, this really is great. My one wish that would push this to 5 stars for me is also focusing on general reading (non TTS) features. Sometimes I use TTS, sometimes I read manually. For example maybe the audio UI can be toggled on and off from a button on the top bar? Save progress not only when TTS is used but also when scrolling and reading? Maybe a stop button can be added in addition to pause that would stop playback totally and remove the highlighting on screen? ### 5/5 — Sehr gelungene und sehr barrierefrei nutzbare App! Vielen Dank! *2026-05-27* Hiermit wird quasi jeder gedruckte beziehungsweise digital vorliegende Text zum Hörbuch, und das macht im Alltagsbetrieb so richtig Spaß. Eine schön gestaltete Programm oberfläche trifft auf ein intelligentes Sprachausgabe – System, mit dem selbst nüchterne Tagesnachrichten richtig schön anzuhören sind. ### 4/5 — Gute App zum Lesen aber noch Luft nach oben. *2026-05-14* Die App funktioniert recht gut. Seitdem auch die deutsche Sprache bei den multilingual Stimmen verfügbar ist, benutze ich die App sehr gerne. Natürlich ist noch Luft nach oben. Sie reagiert gelegentlich etwas träge. Auch dürfte die Auswahl an Stimmen noch etwas größer sein. Zumindest was die multilingual Stimmen angeht. Die anderen Stimmen auf Deutsch kann man leider nicht benutzen, da sie so schlecht sind, wie man sie vielleicht vor 20 Jahren hatte. Dieses Niveau brauche ich nicht mehr. Die App ist auf einem sehr guten Weg. Weiter so. ### 4/5 — Quite natural voice but text display issues *2026-03-28* I really like the app because of the quite natural voices with lots of customization of the speech parameters. However, in portrait mode the app kind of overflows over the right screen border, leading to cut-off text and the settings button not being accessible. In landscape mode everything is perfect. I‘m using an iPhone 15 Pro Max. **Developer response:** Thank you for your feedback. I was able to reproduce this issue on an iPhone 13 Mini - I re-organized the UI buttons so everything fits on the smaller screens. This fix is in version 1.8.0 ### 5/5 — The Ultimate TTS app!! *2026-02-08* this is the future of tts, thank you for leading the way. AMAZING! **Developer response:** Thank you for the kind words! I'm really happy Listen 2 Reader is resonating with you. ## Frequently asked questions about Listen 2 Reader ### Does Listen 2 Reader have ads? No, Listen 2 Reader does not contain advertisements. The app is free to download and offers a one-time purchase for full functionality after a 7-day free trial. ### What is the pricing for Listen 2 Reader? Listen 2 Reader offers a 7-day free trial. After the trial, a one-time purchase is required to unlock all features. The app is not subscription-based. ### What devices does Listen 2 Reader support? Listen 2 Reader is compatible with iPhones and iPads. It utilizes the device's CPU and Apple Neural Engine for on-device processing. ### How often is Listen 2 Reader updated? The latest version of Listen 2 Reader is 1.10.1, last updated on May 26, 2026. Updates typically include new voices, improved features, and bug fixes. ### Can Listen 2 Reader read scanned PDFs? Yes, Listen 2 Reader includes AI Vision for scanned PDFs, enabling it to generate spoken descriptions of figures and charts. This feature is initially supported for EPUB and PDF formats. ### What languages and voices are available in Listen 2 Reader? Listen 2 Reader offers over 100 neural voices across 13 languages, including English, Spanish, French, and German, utilizing engines like Piper and Supertonic. It also supports dozens of Apple system voices. ### Is Listen 2 Reader suitable for users with reading difficulties? Yes, Listen 2 Reader is designed with accessibility in mind. Features like word-by-word highlighting, customizable voices, and offline processing can greatly assist users with reading challenges. ### How does Listen 2 Reader ensure user privacy? Listen 2 Reader processes all text-to-speech synthesis and document analysis directly on the user's device. This means no documents or personal data are uploaded or tracked, ensuring true offline privacy. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 1.11.3 — 2026-08-28 v1.11.3 - fix issue where 3rd party system voices don't stop playing - fix issue where system voices highlighted the wrong words for the first paragraph of playback - fix issue where 3rd party system voices show a nonfunctional, confusing download icon v1.11.2 - Fix edge cases where audio playback session can get stuck - Better messaging around deleting voices - prompts to switch to another voice before being able to delete it etc. v1.11.1 ICLOUD SYNC RELIABILITY Documents added on one device could fail to appear or open on another, and could get stuck reporting that they were still downloading. Listen2 now keeps your synced library in a more reliable iCloud location and moves your existing documents there automatically, so your library, reading progress, and settings stay consistent across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. A one-time notice explains the change. Once every device is updated to this version, you can remove the old copy from Settings, under iCloud and Backup. PLAYBACK RESUME FIX Playback could get stuck after you paused, switched to another app, and came back: pressing play did nothing, or the button changed to Pause with no audio, and the only way to recover was to relaunch Listen2. This was especially likely with VoiceOver, which constantly reconfigures the audio hardware in the background. Listen2 now rebuilds the audio pipeline and resumes from the sentence you were on, so playback recovers reliably. RATING PROMPT FIX The request to rate Listen2 could appear after every file import when the prompt was dismissed by swiping it away instead of tapping a button. Dismissing the prompt any way now counts, so it respects the intended limit and will not ask again for months. v1.11 VOICEOVER PLAYBACK FIX With VoiceOver turned on, playback could get stuck after pausing or switching apps: the button showed Pause but no audio played, and it would not recover until you relaunched Listen2. VoiceOver constantly reconfigures the audio hardware in the background, which could leave the audio engine wedged. Listen2 now detects this and rebuilds the engine on the next play, so audio resumes reliably. IMAGE RECOGNITION FIX When the vision model was not yet downloaded, recognizing images in a document could fail with no way to fix it, because the Manage Vision Model screen had no download control. That screen now has a Download Vision Model button, with progress, a cancel option, and full VoiceOver support, so you can download the model and get descriptions of the images and figures in your documents. ### 1.11.2 — 2026-08-18 v1.11.2 - Fix edge cases where audio playback session can get stuck - Better messaging around deleting voices - prompts to switch to another voice before being able to delete it etc. v1.11.1 ICLOUD SYNC RELIABILITY Documents added on one device could fail to appear or open on another, and could get stuck reporting that they were still downloading. Listen2 now keeps your synced library in a more reliable iCloud location and moves your existing documents there automatically, so your library, reading progress, and settings stay consistent across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. A one-time notice explains the change. Once every device is updated to this version, you can remove the old copy from Settings, under iCloud and Backup. PLAYBACK RESUME FIX Playback could get stuck after you paused, switched to another app, and came back: pressing play did nothing, or the button changed to Pause with no audio, and the only way to recover was to relaunch Listen2. This was especially likely with VoiceOver, which constantly reconfigures the audio hardware in the background. Listen2 now rebuilds the audio pipeline and resumes from the sentence you were on, so playback recovers reliably. RATING PROMPT FIX The request to rate Listen2 could appear after every file import when the prompt was dismissed by swiping it away instead of tapping a button. Dismissing the prompt any way now counts, so it respects the intended limit and will not ask again for months. v1.11 VOICEOVER PLAYBACK FIX With VoiceOver turned on, playback could get stuck after pausing or switching apps: the button showed Pause but no audio played, and it would not recover until you relaunched Listen2. VoiceOver constantly reconfigures the audio hardware in the background, which could leave the audio engine wedged. Listen2 now detects this and rebuilds the engine on the next play, so audio resumes reliably. IMAGE RECOGNITION FIX When the vision model was not yet downloaded, recognizing images in a document could fail with no way to fix it, because the Manage Vision Model screen had no download control. That screen now has a Download Vision Model button, with progress, a cancel option, and full VoiceOver support, so you can download the model and get descriptions of the images and figures in your documents. ### 1.11.1 — 2026-07-08 v1.11.1 ICLOUD SYNC RELIABILITY Documents added on one device could fail to appear or open on another, and could get stuck reporting that they were still downloading. Listen2 now keeps your synced library in a more reliable iCloud location and moves your existing documents there automatically, so your library, reading progress, and settings stay consistent across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. A one-time notice explains the change. Once every device is updated to this version, you can remove the old copy from Settings, under iCloud and Backup. PLAYBACK RESUME FIX Playback could get stuck after you paused, switched to another app, and came back: pressing play did nothing, or the button changed to Pause with no audio, and the only way to recover was to relaunch Listen2. This was especially likely with VoiceOver, which constantly reconfigures the audio hardware in the background. Listen2 now rebuilds the audio pipeline and resumes from the sentence you were on, so playback recovers reliably. RATING PROMPT FIX The request to rate Listen2 could appear after every file import when the prompt was dismissed by swiping it away instead of tapping a button. Dismissing the prompt any way now counts, so it respects the intended limit and will not ask again for months. v1.11 VOICEOVER PLAYBACK FIX With VoiceOver turned on, playback could get stuck after pausing or switching apps: the button showed Pause but no audio played, and it would not recover until you relaunched Listen2. VoiceOver constantly reconfigures the audio hardware in the background, which could leave the audio engine wedged. Listen2 now detects this and rebuilds the engine on the next play, so audio resumes reliably. IMAGE RECOGNITION FIX When the vision model was not yet downloaded, recognizing images in a document could fail with no way to fix it, because the Manage Vision Model screen had no download control. That screen now has a Download Vision Model button, with progress, a cancel option, and full VoiceOver support, so you can download the model and get descriptions of the images and figures in your documents. ### 1.11.0 — 2026-07-03 VOICEOVER PLAYBACK FIX With VoiceOver turned on, playback could get stuck after pausing or switching apps: the button showed Pause but no audio played, and it would not recover until you relaunched Listen2. VoiceOver constantly reconfigures the audio hardware in the background, which could leave the audio engine wedged. Listen2 now detects this and rebuilds the engine on the next play, so audio resumes reliably. IMAGE RECOGNITION FIX When the vision model was not yet downloaded, recognizing images in a document could fail with no way to fix it, because the Manage Vision Model screen had no download control. That screen now has a Download Vision Model button, with progress, a cancel option, and full VoiceOver support, so you can download the model and get descriptions of the images and figures in your documents. ### 1.10.1 — 2026-05-26 Supertonic v3 and Kokoro voices models can now be used on devices with as little as 6GB of RAM like the iPhone 15. Customer voice builder files (voice clones) that you created with Supertone's voice builder tool can now be re-export to work with supertonic v3 and used in Listen2. Also in v1.10: SUPERTONIC V3 The new Supertonic engine fixes the word and phrase skipping that the previous version shipped with. Pacing is rock-solid and latency is lower (12 denoising steps as default now, down from 32). Users with the previous Supertonic engine will see a one-time prompt at launch to download the new model (about 178 MB). 13 SUPERTONIC LANGUAGES Up from 5. Adds Italian, German, Swedish, Greek, Vietnamese, Russian, Turkish, Hindi, and Hungarian. Existing English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese voices carry over. RESUME MID-PARAGRAPH Pausing four minutes into a long PDF page used to restart the whole paragraph on reopen. Listen2 now remembers the sentence you paused on and resumes from there. EXPORT TEXT Long-press a document in the library and tap Export Text to share the extracted text as a .txt file. Useful for sending a chapter to another app, AirDropping a document, or keeping a plain-text backup. Also available as a VoiceOver custom action. BLUETOOTH PAUSE FIX Connecting AirPods mid-playback no longer pauses the audio. Pause now triggers only when the device you were actually listening on disconnects. SHARE EXTENSION Sharing .txt and .md files from Files.app now works directly. Previously these failed with a download error. Unsupported file types now show a clear message directing you to Open in Listen2. SYNC RELIABILITY Books no longer briefly appear as needing re-import after pausing and quickly leaving the library. A race between iCloud sidecar updates and the local document store has been resolved. VOICE LIBRARY CLEANUP The voice library now hides voices whose engine your device cannot run, so you no longer see voices that will not play. ## More apps by Zach Swift - [GigScroll](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/gigscroll/id6753904306) - [Quietus: Sleep & Focus Sounds](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/quietus-sleep-and-focus-sounds/id6757405542) - [GigShed: Stems, Chords & Key](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/gigshed-stems-chords-and-key/id6783093886) All apps by Zach Swift: https://appshunter.io/developer/1845578794 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-09.*