BookTales vs Folio Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
BookTales
This app provides a cozy space to organize your books, set reading goals, and connect with a community of readers. Share recommendations, join book clubs, and discover new reads through a unique 'Blind Date With a Book' feature.
- Cozy bookshelf organization
- Reading goal setting
- Community feed for sharing
- Blind Date With a Book discovery
- Book club creation and joining
- Detailed book reflections
- Direct messaging
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Tales is your cozy corner of the reading world. It's a soft, welcoming space where your books, your thoughts, and your community all live together. Build a cozy bookshelf filled with the stories you’ve finished, the ones you’re savoring, and the titles waiting patiently on your TBR. Set gentle reading goals, keep track of your reading streak, and watch your reading life bloom. Share your favorite reads, recommendations, and bookish moments through the Tales feed, a friendly community space made just for readers. Tag books in your posts so your followers can easily add them to their own shelves, or send a personal recommendation straight to a friend when a story reminds you of them. Feeling adventurous? Tap the little globe on your shelf to try Blind Date With a Book, where you discover a surprise read wrapped in mystery and vibes. Join or create a clubs to connect with readers nearby or across the country. Chat through threaded discussions, track your club’s reads, and enjoy the feeling of reading together — even when you’re apart. You can also directly message friends for one‑on‑one conversations. When you finish a book, reflect on it your way. Give it a simple star rating or dive deeper with optional details like feelings, spice level, trigger warnings, and tags. Tales is more than a tracker, it’s a cozy home for your reading life, built for connection, discovery, and the simple joy of books.
Folio Reader
Organize your reading life by tracking books, saving quotes, and writing personalized reviews. This app provides a private space for your literary journey, syncing your library securely via iCloud.
- Organize books by reading status
- Scan barcodes to add titles
- Extract text from book pages using camera
- Customizable book ratings and reviews
- Share book recommendations
- Private, iCloud-synced library
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A home for the books you read. Folio keeps the books you've read, the passages you saved, and the reviews you wrote. All in one place, and all your own. Your library Every book has its place: Reading, On the Shelf, Finished, or Set Aside. Add a title by searching for it or scanning the barcode, and it shows up with its cover. Open Folio and pick up right where you left off. Quotes and notes Found a line worth keeping? Point your camera at the page and Folio pulls the words off it. Note the page, mark who said it, and the passage joins the rest of what you've collected. Snap the line and keep reading. More than stars Rate the prose, the characters, the pacing, or make up your own categories. Write the kind of review that actually sounds like you, not a row of stars and a shrug. Pass a good book Turn a book into a card worth sending, or share a link that drops it straight into a friend's Folio with one tap. The good ones are meant to travel. Privacy first No social feed, no social anxiety. Your books, quotes, notes, and reviews live on your devices and in your own iCloud, synced privately between them. There's no Folio account, and nothing we can see. You decide what to share, if anything at all. Always yours, always safe Your library syncs through your own iCloud, so it's safe even when your phone isn't. Get a new iPhone or reinstall Folio, and everything's right where you left it. Nothing to set up, nothing to remember. Folio is for readers who'd rather keep their reading close and private.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Folio Reader at every 6 days against BookTales's every 2 months. BookTales's advantage is iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for BookTales against 5.0 for Folio Reader. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 2 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
BookTales ships an update every 2 months, Folio Reader every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 18, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | BookTales | Folio Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (3 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 3 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 6 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 55 MB | 27 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | OWEN JOHN STOKES CAWLEY | Vinner Escobar |
Customer experience
BookTales
Folio Reader
In-app purchases
BookTales
No in-app purchases
Folio Reader
No in-app purchases









