VocaRead vs KO Reader

Turn anything you read into a natural-sounding audiobook, right on your iPhone. Import an EPUB, PDF, Word document, MOBI/AZW3, or paste text. Pick a voice, press play, and VocaRead reads aloud while highlighting the current line. Once a voice is downloaded, everything works offline. Offline and private Download a voice once, then listen on a plane, in the subway, on your commute, or anywhere without a connection. Audio is generated on your device, so your books never leave your iPhone. Scanned PDFs are recognized locally with Apple Vision OCR, never uploaded to the cloud. Your books, your voices Choose from a large selection of natural voices across 31 languages. Switch narrator anytime to match the book, the language, or your mood. Set a precise speed from 0.5x to 2.0x per book. Import almost anything Open EPUB, PDF, MOBI, AZW/AZW3, DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML, and RTF. Import a web page from its URL or your browser, paste an article, email, or note, and listen immediately. Browse Project Gutenberg and your OPDS catalogs for thousands of free classics. Custom pronunciations A name pronounced incorrectly? A foreign word? An acronym? Long-press a word and teach VocaRead exactly how to say it. Read while you listen Follow the text as narration plays, with the current line highlighted. Add bookmarks, highlights, and notes, then export them as Markdown or CSV. Never lose your place Smart Rewind jumps back to a nearby sentence after a call or a headphone disconnect. Set the Sleep Timer for a few minutes or until the end of the chapter, and continue automatically with the next book in your Listen Next queue. CarPlay, Apple Watch, Siri, and widgets Listen in the car with CarPlay, control playback from Apple Watch, ask Siri and Shortcuts, and resume from the widget. On-device translation For selected languages, VocaRead translates locally, without sending your text to the cloud. Great for accessibility A calm, focused way to read for dyslexia, low vision, tired eyes, or anyone who simply prefers to listen. Your library, at a glance A list view to find any book and resume exactly where you left off. Imports now detect introductions and prologues in most books, so playback starts where the book really starts. Simple pricing Every book includes 90 minutes of free listening. Unlock unlimited listening with a one-time purchase. No subscription. No ads.

KO Reader turns web articles, ebooks, and PDFs into natural-sounding speech — entirely on your device. No cloud, no tracking, no subscriptions. Paste a URL or open an EPUB or PDF, and KO Reader reads it aloud with a neural AI voice. Everything runs locally, so your reading stays private and works anywhere — on the train, on a plane, or off-grid. Export your favorite articles or books to m4a or m4b files. WHAT YOU CAN READ • Web articles — Wikipedia, news sites, blogs, and Substack • Fanfiction — Archive of Our Own, Royal Road, and Wattpad, with chapter detection • EPUB ebooks with full chapter navigation • PDF documents • Plain text — paste or type any content • Safari Share Extension — send articles to KO Reader with one tap NATURAL AI VOICES • 53 neural voices across 9 languages: American and British English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin, and Hindi • Preview any voice before selecting it • Mark favorites for quick access • Playback speed from 0.5x to 2.0x • Smart heteronym resolution — the voice knows the difference between "lead" (the metal) and "lead" (to guide), "wound" (injury) and "wound" (past of wind) • Custom pronunciation dictionary — teach the reader how to say names, jargon, or anything you like READ YOUR WAY • Reading queue — line up multiple articles and auto-advance • Bookmarks — save passages to come back to • Reading history — pick up where you left off, across books and articles • Chapter pre-generation — book chapters start instantly, no waiting between them • Audio export — save generated audio for offline listening • Adjustable article font (system, serif, monospaced, rounded) and Dynamic Type support BUILT FOR ACCESSIBILITY • Full VoiceOver support with labeled controls throughout • Haptic feedback on transport controls and sleep timer • Background audio — listen while you use other apps or with the screen off • Sleep timer — stops playback when you drift off • Works with AirPods, Bluetooth speakers, and CarPlay RUNS EVERYWHERE • Universal app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac • macOS keyboard shortcuts (Space to play/pause, Cmd+← and Cmd+→ to skip) • Optimized for Apple Silicon with optional CoreML acceleration • Adjustable CPU thread count for performance tuning PRIVACY FIRST • 100% on-device TTS — your content never leaves your phone • No accounts, no analytics, no tracking, no ads • No internet required after the one-time model download • Reading progress stored locally only KO Reader downloads a ~350 MB neural voice model on first launch. After that, everything works fully offline. Powered by the open-source Kokoro TTS model (Apache 2.0).