The Best There Was
Marvin 3 is the best reading app ever created. None of the mediocre store-linked apps that dominate the field even come close. Not Books, certainly not Kindle, and, sadly, none of the many other failed efforts no longer extant due to the corporate monopolies that have rendered eReaders a dead market.
Whatever it’s flaws, Marvin 3 is a skilled labor of love unmatched by anything before or since. It’s the last attempt to serve serious readers rather than greedy publishers, a vanishing breed in a world of ever-increasing functional illiteracy.
I can’t blame the developer for giving up, but I do wish it were otherwise. I’d gladly pay more for an evolving product than I do for my MS Office or Adobe Creative Suite subscriptions, or any of the other mediocrities that dominate the software industry through rapacious business practices rather than elegant design. A good reader is worth more to me than just about else I buy, and I wouldn’t mind being paying accordingly for something truly wonderful.
Whatever it’s flaws, Marvin 3 is a skilled labor of love unmatched by anything before or since. It’s the last attempt to serve serious readers rather than greedy publishers, a vanishing breed in a world of ever-increasing functional illiteracy.
I can’t blame the developer for giving up, but I do wish it were otherwise. I’d gladly pay more for an evolving product than I do for my MS Office or Adobe Creative Suite subscriptions, or any of the other mediocrities that dominate the software industry through rapacious business practices rather than elegant design. A good reader is worth more to me than just about else I buy, and I wouldn’t mind being paying accordingly for something truly wonderful.
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Still the best
It’s sad that the developer of Marvin 3 has abandoned the app, because even without updates for several years it’s the best of available ePub ereaders. The amount of customization available is amazing, and once the user gets the settings tweaked it’s so easy to use. I’ve used almost every ereader available for iOS and some of them are quite good, but none match Marvin 3.
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It seems that the developer has abandoned this app
This was a great app but for several years now the developer has not responded to questions or bug reports. It has a nasty habit, when task switching, of reopening you book at some random past location. If you don't set a bookmark every time you switch, good luck. Now, with ios 16, things like the dictionary lookup no longer work right. After lookup, the app just freezes. Same for Marvin 2 (no surprise there)
There are other apps out there and I don't feel that you should reward the developer for his lack of interest by purchasing this. Just my opinion, of course. I have switched to Mapleread. It's not perfect but it works with ios q6 AND the developers respond to questions!
There are other apps out there and I don't feel that you should reward the developer for his lack of interest by purchasing this. Just my opinion, of course. I have switched to Mapleread. It's not perfect but it works with ios q6 AND the developers respond to questions!
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Notes and annotations
I know it isn’t your fault about the update, I do want to say though that since iOS 16 update trying to add notes and annotations and highlight has been god awful!! No idea what Apple did but it ruined it. 😭😭 I mean I am able to do it still, it’s just takes longer and the options glitch and overlap each other when you try highlighting
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Actually… Still works!
The fact that this App has not been updated for 5 years is unfortunate. Yet, it is remarkable also, because the App remains unrivaled. For those 5 years (and many more before) this has remained absolutely the best App for anyone who cares about the aesthetics of the reading experience, iPhone screen real estate, menu options etc.
I’m writing this review to help other readers who, like me, are not thrilled by the alternatives to Marvin.
It did seam that the iOS 16 killed Marvin. I, together with other users who wrote about this, thought so, and I started looking for the replacement. Nothing came close, so I decided to toggle Marvin one last time. By accident, I found out that YOU CAN STILL HIGHLIGHT TEXT, and do all the things we’ve been able to do before. You just have to be a little patient. When the “text selection menu“ comes up (from the system, not the app), just tap the arrow on the right. Tap the seemingly blank sections of the menu that will appear, and you’ll get the options you’ve had before - highlights, notes, dictionaries etc)
So, although Marvin has been wounded by this iOS 16, it has not been killed.
Undoubtedly, this App, clearly abandoned by its developers, will die sooner or later. But, until it dies, it shall remain the best.
I’m writing this review to help other readers who, like me, are not thrilled by the alternatives to Marvin.
It did seam that the iOS 16 killed Marvin. I, together with other users who wrote about this, thought so, and I started looking for the replacement. Nothing came close, so I decided to toggle Marvin one last time. By accident, I found out that YOU CAN STILL HIGHLIGHT TEXT, and do all the things we’ve been able to do before. You just have to be a little patient. When the “text selection menu“ comes up (from the system, not the app), just tap the arrow on the right. Tap the seemingly blank sections of the menu that will appear, and you’ll get the options you’ve had before - highlights, notes, dictionaries etc)
So, although Marvin has been wounded by this iOS 16, it has not been killed.
Undoubtedly, this App, clearly abandoned by its developers, will die sooner or later. But, until it dies, it shall remain the best.
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Worked well until iOS 16
Obviously has not been updated for years, but has nonetheless been the best epub reader in my experience. However since iOS 16, things are starting to go wrong, mostly related to highlighting text and the quick actions panel. Hoping an update will come to fix this. I’d happily to subscribe to an app as good as this, if it were updated to remain functional.
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The Best Reader Among Many!
I am kind of book fanatic and I have used many ePub readers but no other reader can beat Marvin. I have more than 25 hundred ePub books on my iPad in Marvin and I love everything about it except the delete highlight option that has a confirm popup which is kind of annoying.
But other than that this is a great app with great capabilities: highlighting, exporting annotations to multiple format (really great!) meta data arranging, slick interface and so many other cool features! Great app...bravo!
But other than that this is a great app with great capabilities: highlighting, exporting annotations to multiple format (really great!) meta data arranging, slick interface and so many other cool features! Great app...bravo!
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Stanza’s successor
From the many user tweaks, support for imported fonts and great library management, Marvin is IMHO my favorite e-reader for IOS. With over 2000 books on my iPhone, I really appreciate the organizational and display capabilities of its library interface. Truly designed for the ebook OCD/fanatic/collector/power user. Now if I could only import a custom image as a reading background and disable the auto brightness while in the app, it would get 5 stars. Always room for improvement, right. And why is it called Marvin? If I could create an e-reader as good as this, I’d called it “Atoz.” Get it?
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Looses last reading position in the text.
Could you please fix the issue with loosing last reading position in the text after re-opening the application? If app is closed and removed from background and started again the book opens couple of pages before the actual page which was open at the closing moment. It requires to scroll forward for finding the right page. Really annoying. Please fix it.
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Works Great on iPhone 13 Pro Max
Despite four years without an update, multiple versions of iOS and multiple new phones released by Apple, this app works incredibly well. When importing a new book, I can’t open it until the app is closed and relaunched, but that takes, very literally, a matter of moments.
This app is well worth the money, even though it’s been years since an update and the developer may well have abandoned it. I prefer this app strongly over my Kindle app and even, at times, over my Kindle Oasis. Take it from a reader: Buy this app!!
This app is well worth the money, even though it’s been years since an update and the developer may well have abandoned it. I prefer this app strongly over my Kindle app and even, at times, over my Kindle Oasis. Take it from a reader: Buy this app!!
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Best epub reader: why not update it?
A couple of years ago, I tried multiple epub reading apps, and found that this was by far the best. I was about to pay for it when I noticed it hadn’t been updated recently. Neither had the developer’s other epub apps. If and when this app shows signs of being maintained, I’ll buy it, but I don’t want to pay for something that might stop working with the next version of iOS.
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Has all the features I want.
What they call “karaoke” reader will flash one word on the screen at a time. It lets you change wpm from really really slow to 720 wpm. (That’s a little slow though.) The word-flash reader also has good quality of life features, with the option to color the first letter of each word and give long words, commas, and spaces a little more time on-screen.
The dark mode is black and saves oled battery.
The margins are easily and minutely adjustable, so that I can use the whole screen to read (looking at you, Apple Books).
The text size is minutely adjustable, though doing so in the middle of a book will change your position in the book (it keeps you at the same page number, but once you change text size total page count changes).
I’m annoyed with the unintuitive and buggy design of the position adjustment slider at the bottom of the controls screen, which is so unreliable that it might as well not exist at all.
The dark mode is black and saves oled battery.
The margins are easily and minutely adjustable, so that I can use the whole screen to read (looking at you, Apple Books).
The text size is minutely adjustable, though doing so in the middle of a book will change your position in the book (it keeps you at the same page number, but once you change text size total page count changes).
I’m annoyed with the unintuitive and buggy design of the position adjustment slider at the bottom of the controls screen, which is so unreliable that it might as well not exist at all.
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Doesn’t support PDFs 🤷🏻♂️
I’ll keep looking. Cloud picker is too hidden and it doesn’t support PDFs for some reason that I’ve yet to fathom. So if any of your ebooks are PDF, you’ll need another app anyway. Might as well just look for a different app from the get-go! I gave this an extra star though for not being subscription based. If everyone quit falling for subscriptions, they’d quickly disappear
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Mostly good reader, non-existent support
I’d give this app a solid 5 if it didn’t throw me backward several hundred or thousand words every time I close and open the book or the app.
While I’m at it, Marvin3 doesn’t sync highlighting between devices so workarounds for this backwards problem are difficult at best.
This going backwards thing makes it annoying and difficult to find my place every time I sit down to read. On top of that their customer support has not once replied to my emails requesting information about why this is happening.
If you are developing another book/comic reader app, it’ll be a welcome addition to the iPhone/iPad community of readers who are putting up with this frustrating application that’s obviously been abandoned by it’s developer.
While I’m at it, Marvin3 doesn’t sync highlighting between devices so workarounds for this backwards problem are difficult at best.
This going backwards thing makes it annoying and difficult to find my place every time I sit down to read. On top of that their customer support has not once replied to my emails requesting information about why this is happening.
If you are developing another book/comic reader app, it’ll be a welcome addition to the iPhone/iPad community of readers who are putting up with this frustrating application that’s obviously been abandoned by it’s developer.
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I’ve tried them all
I truly hope this app doesn’t become abandonware.
I’ve tried a *ton* of different e-reader apps, from the obvious to the obscure, and nothing else comes close to the flexibility, attention to detail, and straight up usability of Marvin. Just get it. Learn it. You’ll never look back.
The only thing I would really love to see added to this app is an ability to get books from a Resilio Sync share (similar to Dropbox, but shared only between my own computers). I supposed updating it for compatibility with the Files interface would handle this and many other sources.
I’ve tried a *ton* of different e-reader apps, from the obvious to the obscure, and nothing else comes close to the flexibility, attention to detail, and straight up usability of Marvin. Just get it. Learn it. You’ll never look back.
The only thing I would really love to see added to this app is an ability to get books from a Resilio Sync share (similar to Dropbox, but shared only between my own computers). I supposed updating it for compatibility with the Files interface would handle this and many other sources.
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Excellent reader, may need a reload on iOS 14.2
After updating to iPadOS 14.2, it would crash on open, but after unloading and reinstalling the app, everything worked fine again.
Marvin is still vastly better than the Kindle app. Kindle only recently gained the ability to filter by read/unread, and still lacks lots of other basic features, like sorting by series, or a convenient list of recently opened books.
Marvin is still vastly better than the Kindle app. Kindle only recently gained the ability to filter by read/unread, and still lacks lots of other basic features, like sorting by series, or a convenient list of recently opened books.
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Terrific eReader
Well built app with plenty of customizations. My only issue is with highlighting. First, it would be nice to have the ability to underline and strikethrough. Second, when I start moving my finger across a sentence to highlight it the page starts to drift into the next page. I’m starting to see unintended highlighted paragraphs. This however is an annoying issue not a major one. The ability to underline and strikethrough would be of greater priority. Keep up the good work.
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My reader for ePub files
I have been using this for years now on a daily basis. No problems with the current iOS 13 even though there have not been updates for a while. It just works for me. I change the theme to make it easier to read in a dark room or outside in the sun. The dictionary search and web search are easy to perform to find out a pronunciation of a word. Works well with Calibre’s ODPS content server to wirelessly transfer new books to read from my library. They have to be DRM free to work.
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Place bug ruins the experience
I like Marvin: I use it for most of my device based reading. With that being said, for as long as I can remember, it’s had a fairly awful bug where it won’t remember my last read place successfully.
For example, today I was reading a book in continuous scroll mode. I was about 75% through the book. I just resumed reading just a moment after switching apps, and Marvin adjusted my place to around 50%, probably 80-90 pages prior to my current place.
This bug makes the app frustrating and effectively unusable.
For example, today I was reading a book in continuous scroll mode. I was about 75% through the book. I just resumed reading just a moment after switching apps, and Marvin adjusted my place to around 50%, probably 80-90 pages prior to my current place.
This bug makes the app frustrating and effectively unusable.
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Great app, needs PDF support and iCloud syncing
Edited my review. After giving it a little time I've come to realize it actually is better than the first version and I'm very pleased with it. Although it still is missing PDF support, The new annotations feature that groups everything for one export and the well thought out sidebar make it worth the money.
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