Comparison

Strobe vs Chapter

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

Head to head
About

Strobe

This app helps you read faster by displaying words one at a time in a fixed position. It supports various document formats and offers an optional natural voice narration. Customize your reading experience with adjustable speeds and timing features.

Highlights
  • Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP)
  • Adjustable reading speed (100-1000 WPM)
  • Natural voice read-aloud narration
  • Support for PDF, EPUB, TXT, and Markdown
  • iCloud Sync across devices
  • Customizable timing and display options
Features
Read full description

Speed read your own books and documents, one word at a time, or listen as a natural voice reads along. No ads, no subscription, no account. Strobe is a speed reading app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It uses Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP): each word appears in the same spot on screen, so your eyes stay still instead of scanning across lines. Import a PDF, EPUB, plain-text, or Markdown file, share an article from Safari, or paste text, then read at 100 to 1,000 words per minute. HOLD TO READ • Press and hold to read. Let go to pause. • Slide up or down while you read to change speed without losing your place. • Swipe sideways while paused to step word by word. • Touch with two fingers to keep reading after you let go, or switch to tap to play. READ ALOUD • A natural voice reads along as the words show, at up to 450 words per minute. • Choose from 15 English voices, American and British. • The voice downloads once and runs on your device, even offline. • Keep listening with the screen locked, and play or pause from the Lock Screen or headphones (iOS 27 or later, and Mac). TIMING THAT FOLLOWS THE TEXT • The speed you set is your real speed, with every pause and slowdown counted. • Smart Timing keeps longer words on screen a little longer. • Punctuation Pauses slow down at sentence ends, commas, dashes, ellipses, and closing quotes, and you set the length of each. • Complexity Timing speeds up simple words and slows down complex ones, each by as much as you choose. • Acronyms and hyphenated words get extra time automatically. • Blank After Sentences adds an optional moment of empty screen between sentences. A FIXED POINT FOR YOUR EYES • Each word lines up on a highlighted focus letter, its Optimal Recognition Point (ORP), in red or one of six other colors. • Show the previous word, the next word, or both, as faintly as you like. • An open quote or parenthesis stays faintly above the word until it closes. • Pop Words In springs each word in, like video captions. YOUR LIBRARY • Every document gets a cover, and Continue Reading takes you back to your exact word. • EPUB tables of contents and PDF bookmarks become chapters, each with its reading time at your speed. • Open the full text with your place highlighted, search for any word or phrase, and tap a word to resume from there. • Page numbers, running headers, and footers are removed on import. • Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text is split into words, and Arabic keeps its connected letterforms. • iCloud Sync keeps your library, places, and speeds the same on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. • Statistics show your time and words read, average session, and real speed. BEYOND THE APP • Share articles and links from Safari and other apps straight into your library. • A Continue Reading widget for your Home Screen, Lock Screen, and Mac desktop. • Siri and Shortcuts can continue reading, open a document, tell you your progress, or speed read any text. MAKE IT YOURS • Seven fonts, adjustable text size, four text tones, and seven highlight colors. • A true black background for OLED screens and reading in the dark. • Every document remembers its own speed. • Keyboard shortcuts on Mac and iPad: Space to read, arrow keys to step, ⌘N for new text, ⌘O to import. • Works with VoiceOver, Larger Text, and Reduce Motion. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Strobe has no account, ads, analytics, or tracking. Your documents stay on your device, and with iCloud Sync, in your own private iCloud, encrypted. The voice runs on your device, so no text is sent away to be read aloud. FREE AND OPEN SOURCE Strobe is free, with no subscription or in-app purchases. The source code is public on GitHub under the Apache 2.0 license. Strobe can't import DRM-protected EPUBs or password-protected PDFs. Reading aloud is for English text, on every Mac and on iPhone and iPad models with 4 GB of memory or more.

About

Chapter

Features
Read full description

Chapter writes you a story. Not one pulled off a shelf — one written for you, a chapter at a time. Every morning a new chapter arrives, about as long as a train ride. Read it on the way to work. At the end you choose what happens next, and tomorrow's chapter follows from the choice you made. A story runs three to five chapters. Pick the genre, pick how it should feel, and either write a premise or let Chapter surprise you. HOW IT WORKS Choose a genre — thriller, mystery, horror, romance, science fiction, fantasy or literary. Choose how it should feel — bleak, wry, tender, dreamlike, clinical or pulpy. Read a chapter a day. Each one ends at a real decision, not a cliffhanger with one way out. Every option leads somewhere genuinely different. IT LEARNS WHAT YOU LIKE React while you read. Mark a passage as too slow, or as exactly what you wanted. Every choice you make at a fork tells Chapter something too — what you actually do says more than what you say. Subscribers get a taste profile built from all of it: a running sense of the pacing, tone and endings you prefer, carried into every story you start afterwards. You can read that profile any time in Settings, and correct it if it gets you wrong. READ IN YOUR LANGUAGE Stories and the whole app are available in English, Italian, German, Spanish and French. FREE AND PAID Free: three stories, one chapter a day. No sign-up, no account needed to start reading. Standard: no waiting between chapters, and every story builds on what you liked in the last one. Plus: everything in Standard, plus up to three stories going at once. Subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled and can be managed in your App Store account settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://amazinglab.studio/privacy/chapter — Stories in Chapter are written by an AI model and are works of fiction. Any resemblance to real people or events is coincidental. Rated 16+. Privacy policy: https://amazinglab.studio/privacy/chapter Support: support@amazinglab.studio

Screenshots

Strobe4 screens
Chapter4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Strobe at none against Chapter's 4. Strobe also leads on device support (3 vs 1). On price, update cadence, ads and iOS requirement 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. Chapter sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per month. Strobe asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Strobe ships an update weekly, Chapter every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on November 9, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Strobe versus Chapter: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterStrobeChapter
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.9 (8 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings8 — better—
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 4 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac — betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.016.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size28 MB41 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperJaafar AbdeenDenis Cencig

In-app purchases

None

Strobe

No in-app purchases

4 purchases

Chapter

Subscriptions4
  • Standard$6.991 Month
  • Plus$11.991 Month
  • Standard$69.991 Year
Show 1 more
  • Plus$119.991 Year

Questions

Is Strobe free?
Strobe is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Chapter free?
Chapter is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Strobe or Chapter have ads?
Neither Strobe nor Chapter shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Strobe or Chapter?
Strobe ships an update weekly, and Chapter every 4 days. Most recently, Strobe was updated on November 9, 2026 and Chapter on November 10, 2026.

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