BookShelves eBook Reader vs Apricity
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
BookShelves eBook Reader
This app allows you to read EPUB, PDF, and comic books with access to over 1.5 million free public domain books. Organize your library, customize your reading experience with multiple themes and fonts, and sync your progress across devices.
- 1.5 million+ free books
- EPUB, PDF, and comic reader
- Customizable themes and fonts
- iCloud sync across devices
- Smart library management
- Highlighting and note-taking
- Export highlights
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BookShelves is an EPUB, PDF, and comic book reader with a built-in catalog of 1.5 million free books. Discover public domain classics, organize your digital library, and sync seamlessly across iPhone, iPad, and Mac with iCloud (Pro). WHAT READERS SAY "Phenomenal book reading and management app, 'just works'." "My everlasting search for the perfect ePub reader might be coming to an end." "Among the best and actively developed." DISCOVER 1.5 MILLION+ FREE BOOKS • 1.5 million+ classic works — Pride and Prejudice, Moby Dick, more • 1,100+ premium editions from Standard Ebooks • Internet Archive — millions of historical texts and rare books • 1,200+ Spanish classics from the Biblioteca Nacional de España • 16,000+ Japanese classics from Aozora Bunko • Browse OPDS catalogs from external libraries and servers One tap to download. No account required. POWERFUL READING EXPERIENCE • Paginated or continuous scroll — read your way • 10 themes including Sepia, Dark Academia, Night Sky, and more • 10 bundled fonts including OpenDyslexic for accessible reading • Adjustable line spacing, margins, text justification, and font weight • Highlight in 5 colors and add notes to any passage • Export highlights to Markdown, JSON, or CSV • Dictionary look-up with language detection • Full-text search across chapters • Nested table of contents navigation • Bookmarks (iCloud sync with Pro) • Vertical text (tategaki) for Japanese and CJK books • Right-to-left reading for Arabic, Hebrew, and CJK texts • Full keyboard and trackpad support • Multi-window reading on Mac COMIC BOOKS AND MANGA • CBZ, CBR, and CB7 format support • Two-page spreads for landscape reading • Right-to-left mode for manga with reversed tap zones and swipes • Auto-detected from metadata or toggled manually SEAMLESS ICLOUD SYNC (Pro) • Books and cover images • Reading progress and current page • Shelves, tags, and ratings • Highlights, notes, and bookmarks • Reader preferences (font, theme, layout) Start reading on your iPhone, continue on your iPad, finish on your Mac. SMART LIBRARY MANAGEMENT • Edit metadata -- title, author, series, publisher, ISBN, and cover image • Automatic metadata and cover art fetching • System shelves: All Books, Recently Added, Reading, Finished, Favorites • Custom shelves for any collection • Color-coded tags for categorization • Search and filter by title, author, or tag • Grid and list views • 5-star ratings • Drag-and-drop import, Files app sharing, or OPDS catalogs • EPUB repair — auto-fixes broken navigation and missing metadata • Import from Calibre libraries with best-format selection FORMAT SUPPORT • EPUB — professional rendering with beautiful typography • PDF — native viewer with smooth scrolling and search • CBZ / CBR / CB7 — comic book archives • FB2 — FictionBook 2 format (auto-converts to EPUB) • MOBI / AZW3 / KF8 / KEPUB — auto-converts to EPUB for reading • TXT / Markdown — plain text and Markdown files (auto-converts to EPUB) MAC EXTRAS • Calibre wireless sync — connect KOReader or other devices over Wi-Fi • OPDS server — share your library on your local network PRIVACY FIRST • Your data stays on your devices • No personal data collected • No ads — clean, distraction-free reading • iCloud keeps your library private and secure FREE AND PRO Free: 10 books with all reading features. Pro unlocks unlimited books, iCloud sync, email to Kindle/reMarkable, highlight export, and OPDS server. Pro is available as a one-time purchase or subscription (monthly/annual, select regions). Subscriptions auto-renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage subscriptions in Apple ID account settings. Privacy Policy: https://getbookshelves.app/privacy/ Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Terms of Service: https://getbookshelves.app/terms/ All books from discovery sources are public domain or openly licensed.
Apricity
This app offers a comprehensive reading and note-taking experience, transforming your device into a personal library. Enjoy features like text-to-speech, customizable bookshelves, and robust PDF annotation tools.
- Read Aloud with highlighting
- Customizable digital bookshelves
- PDF and document annotation
- Handwriting and note-taking
- Audio recording synced with notes
- Focus timer and soundscapes
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Apricity (n.): the warmth of the sun on a winter's day. The best reading happens late, when the house is quiet and a single lamp makes a small warm room inside the dark. Apricity is built around that feeling: a reading room for your books, a voice to read them to you, and a desk for your notes. SOMEONE TO READ TO YOU Read Aloud lights up each sentence as it's read, plays on with the screen locked and in CarPlay, and has a sleep timer. Choose Apple's voices or 54 natural voices in eight languages, made on your device. Character Voice gives a story's characters a voice of their own, and Expressive Reading lets a whispered line sound whispered. Siri knows it: "Read my book in Apricity." YOUR BOOKS, ON REAL SHELVES Add a PDF, EPUB, Word document, MOBI, FB2, Markdown or text file and it stands on a wooden shelf, lit by a lamp at night and daylight by morning. Pick one of four bookcases, stand books by cover or spine, and keep some in a cabinet. Furnish it with 21 themes, 21 wallpapers or your photo, 13 woods, seven lamps and shelf decorations. THE WEB AND THE CLASSICS Paste a link or share a page from Safari, and its story becomes a book, ready to read or hear at once. Or turn the bookcase to thousands of free public-domain classics, shelved by kind like a bookshop's; pick one and it's yours in seconds. TWO WAYS TO READ Original shows the page exactly as published, recoloured for the light you read by. Reflow sets the words like a book, in the face, size and spacing you choose. Scans are read too, and comics and manga open as pages, manga right to left. Highlight, keep notes, look up words and see how much you've read this week. KEEP THE LINES YOU LOVE Save a quote or a word as you read; the Quote of the Day and Word of the Day widgets bring them back each morning. WRITE ON YOUR PDFS Markup puts the notebook's pens on a PDF's own pages: circle a figure, answer a worksheet, and the PDF stays as it was. Split View keeps a notebook open beside the book. NOTEBOOKS THAT FEEL LIKE PAPER Write with Apple Pencil or a finger; pinch in close and the page stays sharp. Neat Writing tidies your hand, and shapes snap clean. Pages come in 81 kinds of paper, from Cornell notes to music staff. Add stickers, photos and sticky notes, choose from 30 covers, and search your handwriting. Notability and GoodNotes notes come in as ink you can keep editing. RECORD THE LECTURE Record as you write, then tap your writing to hear that moment again. Transcripts are made on your device, and with Apple Intelligence, Smart Notes sums up a notebook or quizzes you on it. SOMETHING TO READ BY A fire in the grate, birdsong, rain on the roof, jazz in a busy café: four soundscapes made on the device, and a focus timer to study by. YOUR BOOKS STAY WITH YOU There is no account; your books stay on your device, and iCloud sync carries your highlights, notes, Markup, notebooks and recordings to your other devices. FREE AND PREMIUM Free, for good: every kind of book, pages from the web, the free classics, shelves, both ways of reading, highlights, notes, Markup, every book's notebook, your own notebooks with the seven Classic covers, recording, and iCloud sync. Apricity Premium adds Read Aloud with every voice, transcripts, Smart Notes, exporting notes and notebooks, the Crafted and Illustrated covers, stickers, stamps and washi tape, the soundscapes and focus timer, furnishing the room, and your own fonts. Every new reader gets 14 days of Premium free, with no card asked for. After that, Premium is an auto-renewing yearly subscription, or a one-time purchase for good. Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase. The subscription renews unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the period ends; manage or cancel it in your Apple Account settings. When Premium ends, nothing you made is deleted. Made by Tesorin. Terms of Use: https://www.trytesorin.com/apricity/terms Privacy Policy: https://www.trytesorin.com/apricity/privacy
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Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Apricity at 88% against BookShelves eBook Reader's 62%. Apricity also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 8 days) and rating (4.1 vs 3.8). BookShelves eBook Reader's advantage is iOS requirement (17.4 vs 26.0). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases 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. BookShelves eBook Reader sells 4 one-off in-app purchases and Apricity sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $14.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Apricity holds the better App Store score, 4.1 against 3.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 19 and 8 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 62% of BookShelves eBook Reader's written reviews are positive against 88% of Apricity's.
BookShelves eBook Reader ships an update every 8 days, Apricity every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | BookShelves eBook Reader | Apricity |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.8 (19 ratings) | 4.1 (8 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 61.8% of reviews | 87.5% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 19 — better | 8 |
| Update frequency | Every 8 days | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.4 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 63 MB | 212 MB |
| Age rating | +4 | 4+ |
| Developer | CPE Verm. GmbH | 16697518 Canada Inc. |
Customer experience
BookShelves eBook Reader
Apricity
In-app purchases
BookShelves eBook Reader
- Small Tip$2.99
- Medium Tip$3.99
- Large Tip$8.99
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- Unlock Pro$9.99
Apricity
- Apricity Premium$14.991 Year
- Apricity Premium Lifetime$49.99
Questions
Is BookShelves eBook Reader free?
Is Apricity free?
Which has better reviews, BookShelves eBook Reader or Apricity?
Do BookShelves eBook Reader or Apricity have ads?
Which is updated more often, BookShelves eBook Reader or Apricity?
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