Apple Books vs PocketBook Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- 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
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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.
PocketBook Reader
This app is a versatile reader supporting 26 book and audio formats, including EPUB, PDF, and audiobooks. It offers features like PDF reflow, text-to-speech, cloud synchronization, and extensive customization options for a comfortable reading experience.
- Supports 26 book and audio formats
- PDF Reflow function
- Text-to-speech engine
- Cloud synchronization service
- Customizable interface and reading settings
- Adobe DRM support
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PocketBook Reader is a free app for reading all formats (books, magazines, textbooks, comic books, etc.) and listening to audiobooks! The application supports 26 book and audio formats, including mobi, epub, fb2, cbz, cbr. Read without ads and with total comfort! Choose any content - any format! • Support of 19 book formats, including the most popular - EPUB, FB2, MOBI, PDF, DJVU, DOCX, RTF, TXT, HTML; • Comic book formats CBR and CBZ; • Open books protected with Adobe DRM (PDF, EPUB); • PDF Reflow function (reflow text in PDF files). Listen to audiobooks! • You can listen to audiobooks and other audio files in MP3, M4B, and take notes in them; • Built-in TTS (Text-to-speech) engine for the voicing of the text files. Download and sync content easily! • Free PocketBook Cloud service for synchronizing all your books, including audiobooks, as well as reading positions, notes and bookmarks on all your devices; • Your files from Dropbox or Google Books services are easily connected to the app to create one consolidated library. You can even connect multiple accounts at the same time; • Support for OPDS catalogs - get access to network libraries; • ISBN scanner, for quick search of electronic versions of books by barcode; • Opportunity to borrow books and periodicals; • If you have a E Ink e-reader PocketBook, you can easily synchronize all your books and accounts just by scanning a QR code. Ready to switch from another app? No problem! Getting started with PocketBook Reader is easy! With an intuitive interface, the application provides you with unprecedented freedom – lots of options for settings and no restrictions. Choose, change, customize, and personalize! • Intuitive interface, easy navigation, and minimalistic design; • Opportunity to choose one of the seven interface color themes, reassign the buttons and display areas; • Two night-reading modes - for better reading comfort anytime; • Adjust the font style, font size, line spacing, and margin size; • Animation of turning pages; • Opportunity to crop margins – make the page look exactly the way you want. Get fast file access and easy search! • All files are quickly found and instantly opened, even with built-in audio and video fragments; • Your books will never be lost in the device’s memory - thanks to the smart search, scanning files on your tablet or smartphone is a matter of seconds. Any file or document can be found in a few clicks! • The app allows you to sort books, create collections, filter and mark files as you like. Your library - your rules; • Convenient managing of audio files - it is easy to sort and play your audiobooks. Make bookmarks, take notes, add comments! • You can quickly find all your notes and share them with friends via email or messengers; • Collect all your notes, bookmarks, and comments into separate files for even greater convenience. PocketBook Reader was created by avid readers for avid readers, and that’s why it’s probably the best e-book reader app.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Apple Books at none against PocketBook Reader's 56. Apple Books also leads on ratings volume (89K vs 9.8K) and iOS requirement (10.0 vs 13.0). PocketBook Reader's advantage is chart position (#161 vs unranked). On price, rating, review sentiment and update cadence 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
Both are free to download. PocketBook Reader sells 41 one-off in-app purchases. Apple Books asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.4 for Apple Books against 4.5 for PocketBook Reader. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Apple Books has 89K ratings behind it against 9.8K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 52% of Apple Books's written reviews are positive against 54% of PocketBook Reader's.
Apple Books ships an update every 4 months, PocketBook Reader every 2 months. Both last shipped on September 25, 2026.
| Parameter | Apple Books | PocketBook Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (89K ratings) | 4.5 (9.8K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 52.0% of reviews | 54.5% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 89K — better | 9.8K |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | — | #161 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 10.0 — better | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 17 MB | 106 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 9+ |
| Developer | Apple | Pocketbook International SA |
Customer experience
Apple Books
PocketBook Reader
User reviews
Apple Books
From 89K App Store ratingsWhat 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
PocketBook Reader
From 9.8K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Convenient reading experience
- 🚀 Smooth scrolling
- 💡 Customizable settings (font, margin, etc.)
- 🔒 Supports DRM-protected content
- 👍 Intuitive user interface
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes and freezes
- 🐛 Unreliable cloud sync
- 🐛 Inconsistent page rendering
- 🐛 Buggy text highlighting and annotation
- 🐛 Slow loading times
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
PocketBook Reader
Reported bugs
4 issues- Books disappearing from library after login issues
- Inability to open DRM-protected PDFs
- Inconsistent behavior when switching between portrait and landscape modes
- Text-to-speech voice quality issues
Requested features
5 requests- Ability to organize books into custom folders
- Option to disable quick action zones
- Improved text-to-speech controls (seek, pause, etc.)
- Support for handwritten annotations with Apple Pencil
- Faster page turning and scrolling
In-app purchases
Apple Books
No in-app purchases
PocketBook Reader
- eBook3 variants$0.99
- eBook (class A)$0.99
- eBook2 variants$1.99
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- eBook (class B)$1.99
- eBook$2.95
- eBook2 variants$2.99
- eBook (class C)$2.99
- eBook3 variants$3.99
- eBook: type 4.79$3.99
- eBook: type 4.19$3.99
- eBook (class D)$3.99
- eBook (class Alt5)$4.99
- eBook: type 5.39$4.99
- eBook (class F)$4.99
- eBook: type 5.89$4.99
- eBook$4.99
- eBook: type 5.09$4.99
- eBook (class G)$5.99
- eBook2 variants$5.99
- eBook: type 7.09$5.99
- eBook: type 7.19$5.99
- eBook: type 8.29$6.99
- eBook: type 7.59$6.99
- eBook3 variants$7.99
- eBook: type 8.89$7.99
- eBook (class J)$8.99
- eBook$8.99
- eBook$9.90
- eBook2 variants$9.99
- eBook (class L)$10.99
- eBook: type 13.9$11.90
- eBook$11.99
- eBook: type 12.99$11.99
- eBook$12.99
- eBook (class N)$12.99
- eBook (class O)$13.99
- eBook: type 17.9$14.90
- eBook$14.99
- eBook (class R)$16.99
- eBook (class T)$18.99
- eBook (class W)$21.99
Questions
Is Apple Books free?
Is PocketBook Reader free?
Which has better reviews, Apple Books or PocketBook Reader?
Do Apple Books or PocketBook Reader have ads?
Which is updated more often, Apple Books or PocketBook Reader?
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