Shows promise.
Needs to have an author-sort that returns a list of authors, so one can tap-through to get the authors books. (Which should then be internally sortable by date-added, alphabetical, or – and this is a tricky one – publication order, which might have to be added by the user.)
Ideally, it would also have a way to change the cover (say, you have Phonto and are making covers for fanfic from AO3), but I'm not seeing this just now. I'll try to come back and edit the review if I'm wrong.
There's also no way to give money to the devs? Concerning. We lost Marvin (the ideal ereader) because the app wasn't drawing in enough to sustain the App Store fee.
Response from developer
You can find all books from any given author contextually by tapping and holding (or tapping on …), selecting "Contributors" and then selecting the contributor that you want. You can also search by author, this is supported as well. True author sorting can be difficult because EPUB files often lack a string to sort them properly, so you end up with a mix of cases where either the first name or last name is listed first. Feel free to contact us through our support (https://support.thoriumreader.com) or Discord server to discuss this further, we're always glad to receive this sort of feedback.
Garbage
Not even turning to landscape mode zooms in properly, it shows you two pages at once!! If you can’t read the tiny default font then you have to zoom in manually on EVERY PAGE.
Response from developer
You've probably opened a PDF or EPUB Fixed Layout if you cannot change the font size. These formats are not designed to allow the user to change the font size, you need a normal EPUB for that (also called a reflowable EPUB). Zooming is supported on both PDF and EPUB Fixed Layout using pinch to zoom. Feel free to contact our support at ios@thoriumreader.com or https://support.thoriumreader.com for additional help.
Shortfalls
Response from developer
Improving our support for audio is at the top of our roadmap right now. With our 1.4 version (planned for October/November) we'll introduce support for audiobooks as well as additional controls for the read aloud feature. Being able to read and listen at the same time is on our list of planned features, with controls over what gets highlighted (sentence, word or both) and how (control over color and style).
Clean interface
New go-to for epubs
Third party programs used
Response from developer
As documented on our App Store page, Thorium Reader only collects anonymous data related to crash reporting and overall usage through Firebase. A link to our privacy policy is also available.
Very promising!
So far, I really like Thorium reader! Like a previous user said, highlighting would be a nice feature to have. But, that appears to be in process.
Additionally, I’d like to see scroll mode on iOS and a sync functionality with desktop. Particularly WebDAV.
Overall, I really like what I’m seeing! I do think the mobile app is much more refined design-wise than the desktop app. I find the Mac desktop app (intel) a bit clunky and not very visually appealing.
Response from developer
Hello, Highlights and scrolling mode for EPUB (it's already available for PDF) are both on our radar for this year. For sync, we'll support OPDS (including progression support) later this year, which will make Thorium Reader compatible with multiple self-hosting solutions. A standalone sync feature is further in the future with no ETA yet since we'd like to ship an Android app before. We'll continue to stick as closely as possible to iOS/iPadOS/macOS to deliver a fully native experience. Thanks, Thorium Reader Team
Promising but could use more tweaks
Response from developer
Hello, Thank you for your feedback. A highlight feature is planned, but we'd like this feature to be interoperable with other reading apps. There's currently an on-going effort to standardize this feature at W3C, we plan on implementing highlight support as soon as the specification becomes stable enough to be implemented (this should be later this year). In terms of font options, is there any particular font or font type that you're looking for? Feel free to contact us at mobile@thoriumreader.com for such feedback as well. Thanks, Thorium Reader Team
