Open Scanner vs Timbre
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Open Scanner
Transform your device into a powerful document scanner. Quickly capture papers, automatically recognize text, and organize your scans with AI-powered features. Seamlessly share and edit your documents in various formats.
- Automatic text recognition (OCR)
- Automatic document naming
- Location-based tagging
- Add saved signatures
- Organize and re-order pages
- iCloud sync
- Annotate and edit scans
- Export as PDF
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Open Scanner is a fast and simple-to-use paper-scanning app with AI features to speed up your scanning workflow: - Automatic text recognition to build page transcript - Automatic document naming - Scans are tagged by your current location - Add signatures saved on your other devices - Native Vision Pro support - Keep your scanned documents in the Open Scanner library - Organize and re-order scanned document pages - iCloud syncs your library to all your devices - Annotate and edit your scans - Use Apple Pencil to mark up scans on iPad - Easy sharing and export of scanned documents as PDF - 100% native iOS app, with no third-party accounts necessary
Timbre
Listen to your books aloud with natural-sounding voices and adjustable speeds. Highlight text as it's read to improve comprehension. Convert physical books into audiobooks by capturing images.
- Listen at 2X speed
- Natural human voices
- Text highlighting
- Convert books to audiobooks
- Free voice option
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Text-to-Speech from Timbre allows you to listen to your books aloud. FEATURES YOU'LL LOVE: • Listen to your books at 2X speed Our high quality voices allow you to breeze through your books at up to 2X speed so you can learn even quicker! • Natural sounding Human voices Our premium voices sound more natural and smooth than typical robotic AI readers. We offer a free voice for users to try out the app without a subscription. • Follow along with Text Highlighting The text of your books is highlighted and synchronized with the sentence and word being read aloud. Letting you retain more information by following audio and visual cues at the same time. • Listen to Books off Your Shelf Use our app to capture pictures of the books you're reading and turn it into an audiobook. Is a book really starting to drag? Use our app to turn it into and audiobook to get back on track. Timbre was created to provide a low barrier way to allow people to read more. We have all had that experience of struggling to book, repeating the same paragraph because its hard to focus, etc. So we designed Timbre to make it easier for everyone to read books with less friction. Please let us know if there are any features that you would like to see created or improved. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://pasos.io/privacy-policy Users are able to use the app without a subscription using our free voice only. Please note that a subscription is required to use the premium voices of Timbre. Timbre Monthly Subscription - $19.99 Timbre Annual Subscription - $99.00
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Open Scanner at none against Timbre's 2. Open Scanner also leads on rating (4.7 vs 4.2) and ratings volume (205 vs 5). On price, update cadence, ads and device support 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. Timbre sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $19.99 per month. Open Scanner asks for nothing beyond the download.
Open Scanner holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Open Scanner has 205 ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Open Scanner ships an update every 10 days, Timbre every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Open Scanner | Timbre |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (205 ratings) — better | 4.2 (5 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 71.4% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 205 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days — better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 18.2 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1 MB | 216 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Pencil Research | Jack Ransom |
Customer experience
Open Scanner
Timbre
In-app purchases
Open Scanner
No in-app purchases
Timbre
- Timbre Monthly Subscription7 Days trial$19.991 Month
- Timbre Annual Subscription$99.001 Year
