Comparison

Tonspur vs Spine

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

Head to head
About

Tonspur

Listen to your personal audiobook collection with this companion app. Enjoy features like adjustable playback speed, a sleep timer, and easy chapter navigation. Download books for offline listening and sync your progress across devices.

Highlights
  • Variable playback speed
  • Sleep timer
  • Offline listening
  • Chapter navigation
  • Progress syncing
  • CarPlay support
  • Multi-library support
Features
Read full description

Listen to your personal audiobook collection with Tonspur, the companion app for Audiobookshelf. Tonspur makes it easy to enjoy the audiobooks you own. Adjust playback speed to match your preference, set a sleep timer for bedtime listening, and jump between chapters with a simple tap. Download books to listen offline, and sync your progress across all your devices including iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and CarPlay. Connect to multiple libraries and switch between them effortlessly. Whether you're at home, in the car with CarPlay, or on the go, your audiobooks are always ready when you are. FEATURES: * Variable playback speed and sleep timer * Download books for offline listening * Read eBooks * Easy chapter navigation * Multi-User Support * Easily switch between libraries * CarPlay support * Automatic progress syncing * Statistics * Widgets * Pinned Genres and Playlists

About

Spine

This app enhances audiobook listening with features like listener levels, daily streaks, and shareable year-end recaps. It offers a beautiful, integrated player and syncs with Hardcover, all while keeping your data private on-device.

Highlights
  • Integrated audiobook player
  • Listener levels and daily streaks
  • Hardcover sync
  • On-device AI summaries
  • Shareable year-in-review recap
  • Lock screen and widget controls
Features
Read full description

Spine is the audiobook app you'll actually leave open. It streams from your own cloud library, syncs with Hardcover, and turns the habit of listening into something worth coming back to with listener levels, daily streaks, and a year-in-review Recap bright enough to share. Built native for iOS 26, with Liquid Glass, serif typography, and a player carved into the book's detail page. No subscription. No ads. No in-app purchases. No account to create with us. Bring your own library, keep your own data. WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT • ONE PAGE FOR THE BOOK: No separate Now Playing screen. Cover, scrubber, transport, speed, sleep timer, chapters, and bookmarks all live inline on the detail page, on an ambient backdrop tinted by the cover. • CHAPTERS THAT JUST WORK: Single-file M4B audiobooks expose their chapters automatically. Cloud folders with multiple M4Bs split into separate library entries. No manual editing, no reprocessing. • HARDCOVER SYNC: Just listen. Spine logs progress and finished books to Hardcover, pulls cover art, genre, and structured series data, and keeps your shelves in sync. • ON-DEVICE INTELLIGENCE: Open the next book in a tracked series and Spine writes a two-sentence "previously on…" recap from what you've already finished. It also rewrites bloated marketing descriptions into a calm summary, captions your Recap, and cleans up filename-salad titles. All on Apple's on-device foundation model. Nothing about your library leaves the phone. • LEVELS, STREAKS, AND GOALS: Lifetime hours unlock six tiers, from Sapling to Oracle. A unified daily/yearly goal card, a streak chip, and a year-spanning heatmap show the shape of your habit at a glance. • A RECAP YOU'LL WANT TO SHARE: Five bright screens covering hours, finished books, top author and genre, monthly rhythm, and the books you marked Read on Hardcover. One tap stitches the whole thing into a postable image. • PLAYBACK THAT PAYS ATTENTION: Step away for a moment and Spine rewinds a few seconds when you press play. The sleep timer fades audio gently to zero. Finish a series entry and the next book surfaces automatically. • LIVE ON THE LOCK SCREEN: Live Activities follow the current book onto the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, with a tappable Play/Pause. The home-screen widget mirrors the same control on a cover-tinted backdrop, toggle playback in one tap, even when Spine isn't running. • BOOKMARKS WORTH KEEPING: Tap to mark any moment with a written note. Tap to jump back later. • SEARCH THAT POINTS SOMEWHERE: Open the search tab cold and you get a trending-genre card tuned to what you actually listen to, a Discover list of Audible new releases, and trending shortcuts. Most people aren't searching their own shelf, they're looking for the next thing. • EVERY BOOK IS A DOORWAY: Detail pages carry "More by author", "Top in genre", and a "Part of {Series}" rail that interleaves the books you own with the Hardcover siblings you don't, in reading order, right under your bookmarks. • CLOUD LIBRARY, REPAIRED IN ONE TAP: When a cloud title expires or goes stale, Spine flags it on the detail page and offers a one-tap re-download. No re-adding, no losing your progress. • SPOTLIGHT-INDEXED: Search your library from anywhere in iOS. PRIVACY BY DEFAULT Spine has no servers, no analytics, and no third-party SDKs. API keys live in the iOS Keychain. Your library, listening history, and bookmarks stay on your device (and sync via your own iCloud, if you enable it). The on-device AI features run on Apple Intelligence — your books never leave the phone. REQUIREMENTS • iPhone running iOS 26. • A cloud audiobook library. • A free Hardcover account is recommended for metadata, search, and read sync. • Apple Intelligence-eligible device is required for the optional AI features (everything else works without it).

Screenshots

Tonspur4 screens
Spine4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Spine at none against Tonspur's 1. Spine also leads on update cadence (every 4 days vs every 3 weeks) and ratings volume (25 vs 6). Tonspur's advantage is review sentiment (83% vs 75%). On price, rating, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Tonspur sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Spine asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Tonspur against 4.8 for Spine. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 6 and 25 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 83% of Tonspur's written reviews are positive against 75% of Spine's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Tonspur ships an update every 3 weeks, Spine every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on August 27, 2026 and September 17, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Tonspur versus Spine: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTonspurSpine
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (6 ratings)4.8 (25 ratings) — better
Positive reviews83.3% of reviews — better75.0% of reviews
Number of ratings625 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksEvery 4 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, Apple Watch
Requires iOS26.126.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size32 MB13 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperTim OlbrichAccelyze Inc.

Customer experience

Tonspur

All ratings6 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews6 reviews
Positive83.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative16.7%

Spine

All ratings25 ratings
Positive96.0%
Neutral4.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews8 reviews
Positive75.0%
Neutral25.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Tonspur

One-time1
  • Downloads$8.99
None

Spine

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Tonspur free?
Tonspur is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Spine free?
Spine is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Tonspur or Spine?
Spine is rated higher. Tonspur averages 4.7 out of 5 from 6 ratings, while Spine averages 4.8 from 25 ratings.
Do Tonspur or Spine have ads?
Neither Tonspur nor Spine shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Tonspur or Spine?
Tonspur ships an update every 3 weeks, and Spine every 4 days. Most recently, Tonspur was updated on August 27, 2026 and Spine on September 17, 2026.

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