Comparison

Apple Books vs Serial Reader

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Apple Books

Discover, read, and listen to millions of books and audiobooks. Browse curated collections, personalized recommendations, and bestsellers. Customize your reading experience with various themes and settings, and set reading goals to build a habit. Share your library with family.

Highlights
  • Discover millions of books and audiobooks
  • Personalized recommendations and curated collections
  • Customizable reading experience (fonts, themes, spacing)
  • Reading goals and progress tracking
  • Family Sharing for books and audiobooks
  • Apple CarPlay and Apple Watch integration
Features
Read full description

Apple Books is the best place to discover, read and listen to entertaining and informative books and audiobooks. Browse through top charts, personalised recommendations and expertly curated collections in the Book Store and Audiobook Store, or use search to easily find the perfect read or listen, no subscription needed. Track what you’ve read and want to read, and set your own reading goals—all in one app and across all your Apple devices. Explore millions of books and audiobooks • Check out today’s bestsellers, free books and special offers for readers of all ages, plus personalised recommendations. • Explore collections curated by the Apple Books team to find your next book or audiobook in your favourite genres, from mysteries and thrillers to romance, history, self-development and kids. • Sample any book or preview an audiobook to start enjoying the first few pages for free. • Keep track of the books and audiobooks you’re interested in with your Want to Read list. Customise your reading experience • Choose from a selection of reading themes, which include a variety of fonts and background colours. • Make your book easy to read by adjusting line height and letter spacing to your preference. • Use Auto-Night Theme and adjust your screen brightness to make reading more comfortable for your eyes. • Enable vertical scrolling to move continuously through books instead of flipping pages. Make reading a habit with Reading Goals • Set a reading goal to encourage yourself to read daily. • Track reading streaks and how many books you’ve read this year. • Get reminders and coaching to help you achieve your reading goals. Share with your whole family • Family Sharing lets you enjoy your books and audiobooks with your favourite people. Invite up to five family members. Apple CarPlay • Designed with safety in mind, the Audiobooks app in Apple CarPlay allows you to listen to audiobooks while driving. • Large buttons make it easy to start and stop, rewind or fast forward, and the simplified library helps you find your next audiobook while still keeping your eyes on the road. Apple Watch features • Use the Audiobooks app on Apple Watch to get back to your recent audiobooks or browse your library right from your wrist. • Use the Watch app on iPhone to choose which audiobooks to download to your Apple Watch. Requirements & store availability • iPhone requires iOS 12 or later. • iPad requires iPadOS 12 or later. • Content varies by country or region and may not be available on all devices.

About

Serial Reader

Read classic literature in daily, manageable segments. This app breaks down over 900 books into daily issues, each readable in 20 minutes or less, helping you build reading habits and tackle lengthy classics. Customize your reading experience with various themes, fonts, and sync options.

Highlights
  • Daily book installments
  • Over 900 classic books
  • Serialize your own EPUBs
  • Sync with Goodreads/Readwise
  • Word lookup
  • Reading streaks and badges
Features
Read full description

Read classic books in daily bite-sized bits!  Serial Reader helps you fit more reading into your busy life. Choose from more than 900 books — or add your own! — and the app delivers a new issue from the book every day. Build great reading habits and tackle daunting classic books. Each daily issue can be read in 20 minutes or less, making it easy to fit reading into your spare time! Picked as one of Apple's Best New Apps and Best New App Updates. "This free app will make you ridiculously well-read in 20 minutes a day" — Mashable "For those who are intimidated by thick, leather-bound tomes, Serial Reader is a good way to break it all down" — The Washington Post • Read hundreds of popular classic books for free • Large variety of themes & fonts • Serialize your own EPUB books • Sync to Goodreads and Readwise • Lookup words with quick dictionary & Wikipedia access • Earn fun badges and track your reading streaks Plus, with the Serial Premium upgrade: • Read tomorrow's issue early • Sync your reading across multiple devices • Save quotes & notes while reading • Save books to Read Later • Pause delivery of new issues • Pick specific delivery days and hours for new issues • Custom app icons "Serial Reader’s subscription format makes it a little bit more fun to crank through the classics" — Lifehacker "A useful tool that makes it easy in our modern world to make classic books part of your reading diet" — MacStories More than 900 books available in the app with new titles added each week. Every book is free to read! A preview of available books: Most Popular • Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen • A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens • The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald • Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky • War & Peace - Leo Tolstoy • Les Misérables - Victor Hugo • The Time Machine - H.G. Wells • The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde • The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway American Lit • Moby-Dick - Herman Melville • Little Women - Louisa May Alcott • My Antonia - Willa Cather • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain Adventure • The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas • Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson • Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe • The Odyssey - Homer • King Solomon's Mines - H. Rider Haggard Romance • Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte • Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy • Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare Science Fiction • The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells • 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne • A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs Horror • Dracula - Bram Stoker • The Dunwich Horror - H.P. Lovecraft • Frankenstein - Mary Shelley • The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allan Poe • The King in Yellow - Robert W. Chambers • The Wendigo - Algernon Blackwood Mystery • The Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle • The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie • The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins Biography • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass • Twelve Years a Slave - Solomon Northup Children's • Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll • The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame • Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery Fantasy • The Well at the World's End - William Morris • Time and the Gods - Lord Dunsany • The Wood Beyond the World - William Morris Philosophy • The Republic - Plato • Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes • Rights of Man - Thomas Paine Nonfiction • Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Mary Wollstonecraft • On the Origin of Species - Charles Darwin • The Federalist Papers • The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels Westerns • Riders of the Purple Sage - Zane Grey • The Virginian - Owen Wister • Gunman's Reckoning - Max Brand Religion • King James Bible • The Dhammapada • The Quran Build great reading habits and finish classic books in days with Serial Reader!

Screenshots

Apple Books4 screens
Serial Reader4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Serial Reader at 95% against Apple Books's 52%. Serial Reader also leads on rating (4.8 vs 4.4). Apple Books's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 5) and ratings volume (89K vs 4.1K). On price, update cadence, ads and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Serial Reader sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Apple Books asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Serial Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Apple Books has 89K ratings behind it against 4.1K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 52% of Apple Books's written reviews are positive against 95% of Serial Reader's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Apple Books ships an update every 4 months, Serial Reader every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 25, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Apple Books versus Serial Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterApple BooksSerial Reader
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (89K ratings)4.8 (4.1K ratings) — better
Positive reviews52.0% of reviews94.9% of reviews — better
Number of ratings89K — better4.1K
Update frequencyEvery 4 monthsEvery 3 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS10.0 — better15.6
Further details — not scored
Size17 MB29 MB
Age rating12+12+
DeveloperAppleMichael Schmitt

Customer experience

Apple Books

All ratings88,701 ratings
Positive85.6%
Neutral4.1%
Negative10.4%
Written reviews2,751 reviews
Positive52.0%
Neutral10.7%
Negative37.4%

Serial Reader

All ratings4,082 ratings
Positive97.3%
Neutral1.7%
Negative1.0%
Written reviews215 reviews
Positive94.9%
Neutral1.4%
Negative3.7%

User reviews

Apple Books

From 89K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Seamless integration across devices
  • 📚 Vast library of books available
  • 👍 User-friendly interface
  • 🎧 Exceptional audiobook experience

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Books get deleted from local storage
  • 🐛 Unreliable syncing between devices
  • 🔒 Lack of audio closed captions
  • 🤔 Pricing concerns for some books
  • 🤔 Frustrating UI changes in recent updates

Serial Reader

From 4.1K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Bite-sized reading
  • 📚 Wide selection of classics
  • 👍 Simple and intuitive interface
  • 💰 Free with affordable premium upgrade
  • 🎉 Motivating achievements and badges

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Sync issues across devices
  • 🔍 Limited customization options
  • 🕰️ Inflexible delivery schedule
  • 🤔 Lack of modern/non-classic book selection

Bugs and requests

Apple Books

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Books randomly deleted from device
  • Syncing issues between iPhone and iPad
  • Scrolling and navigation glitches
  • Inconsistent font and formatting issues
  • Inability to download books over cellular data

Requested features

5 requests
  • Audio closed captions for audiobooks
  • Ability to organize books by series
  • Custom font and highlighter color options
  • Syncing for audiobooks across devices
  • Integration with book review platforms

Serial Reader

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • App crashes when changing fonts
  • Issues with new chapter delivery not working

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add more modern/non-classic book options
  • Improve sync functionality across devices
  • Allow more customization of reading experience
  • Provide flexible delivery schedule options

In-app purchases

None

Apple Books

No in-app purchases

5 purchases

Serial Reader

One-time5
  • Tip Jar - Essay$1.99
  • Serial Premium$2.99
  • Tip Jar - Short Story$4.99
Show 2 more
  • Tip Jar - Novel$9.99
  • Tip Jar - Epic$14.99

Questions

Is Apple Books free?
Apple Books is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Serial Reader free?
Serial Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Apple Books or Serial Reader?
Serial Reader is rated higher. Apple Books averages 4.4 out of 5 from 89K ratings, while Serial Reader averages 4.8 from 4.1K ratings.
Do Apple Books or Serial Reader have ads?
Neither Apple Books nor Serial Reader shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Apple Books or Serial Reader?
Apple Books ships an update every 4 months, and Serial Reader every 3 months. Most recently, Apple Books was updated on September 25, 2026 and Serial Reader on September 23, 2026.

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