Fish vs Serial Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Fish
Explore the nuanced difference between internet 'liking' and genuine 'loving' through an interactive tap essay. This unique format uses typography, color, and surprises to present a heartfelt manifesto.
- Interactive tap essay format
- Explores internet liking vs. loving
- Uses typography and color
- Includes surprises
- Short reading time
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This is a short but heartfelt manifesto about the difference between liking something on the internet and loving something on the internet. It's also an experiment in a new format: a "tap essay," presenting its argument tap by tap, using typography, color, and a few surprises to make its case. The essay takes about ten minutes to read, maybe less if you're fast. It's perfect for a coffee break or a train ride.
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.
- Daily book installments
- Over 900 classic books
- Serialize your own EPUBs
- Sync with Goodreads/Readwise
- Word lookup
- Reading streaks and badges
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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
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Fish at none against Serial Reader's 5. Fish also leads on iOS requirement (11.0 vs 15.6). Serial Reader's advantage is ratings volume (4.1K vs 38). 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. Serial Reader sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Fish asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Fish against 4.8 for Serial Reader. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Serial Reader has 4.1K ratings behind it against 38, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 99% of Fish's written reviews are positive against 95% of Serial Reader's.
Fish ships an update every 4 months, Serial Reader every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Fish | Serial Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (38 ratings) — better | 4.8 (4.1K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 98.7% of reviews — better | 95.2% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 38 | 4.1K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 3 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 75 MB | 29 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Robin Sloan | Michael Schmitt |
Customer experience
Fish
Serial Reader
User reviews
Fish
From 38 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 💡 Thought-provoking content
- 🔄 Highly rewatchable/rereadable
- ✨ Beautiful presentation/design
- 🤔 Inspires reflection and deeper thinking
- ⏳ Timeless and enduring appeal
Room to improve
- ⏳ Updated version too long (compared to original)
- 📱 Not optimized for newer devices (e.g., retina iPad)
Serial Reader
From 4.1K App Store ratingsWhat 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
Fish
Requested features
1 request- Option to include the original version
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
Fish
No in-app purchases
Serial Reader
- Tip Jar - Essay$1.99
- Serial Premium$2.99
- Tip Jar - Short Story$4.99
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- Tip Jar - Novel$9.99
- Tip Jar - Epic$14.99









