ReadTrace Pro vs LightYou

A quiet, serif-first read-later app for people who treat long-form articles like books. — Save anything from the web — Tap "share" in Safari, or paste a URL inside the app. ReadTrace pulls out the body and images, strips the chrome, and saves a clean copy to your private library. Once it's saved, the network can vanish. Articles, images, and fonts are cached for fully offline reading. — Read on cream paper — Every article renders in Fraunces — a warm contemporary serif — over a soft cream background that's easier on the eyes than stark white. No ads, no related stories, no tap-to-load-more. The reader remembers your scroll position so you can return weeks later and pick up exactly where you left off. — Organize favorites with collections — Drop favorites into custom buckets — "Work", "Travel", "Things to write about someday". Each collection is its own shelf inside the Favorites tab. Tap a chip to narrow the library; tap it again to clear. — Search what you remember, not what you typed — Built-in semantic search uses Apple's on-device language embeddings to understand intent. Search "AI startups" and find articles about Vibe Coding training camps — no exact keyword required. Combined with literal substring matching across titles, authors, hostnames and tags, you'll find anything you've read. — Auto-tagging via on-device NLP — Every saved article is read once by Apple's NaturalLanguage framework and labeled with 3–5 keyword tags. As your library grows from ten articles to a thousand, tags keep it browsable. — Reading time, done right — Counts Chinese characters and Latin words separately at native reading speeds, so a long bilingual article gets an honest minute estimate instead of an English formula glued onto Chinese prose. — A safety net for what you save — Deleted articles don't vanish. They sit in the Recycle Bin for 30 days, then quietly clear themselves out. Restore anything with one tap — no second-guessing your gestures. — iCloud backup — A single backup file holds every article and every cached image. Restore on a new phone in seconds — fully offline-restorable, no servers to depend on. — Built for privacy — No accounts. No analytics. No tracking pixels. Your reading is between you and your phone. iCloud Drive is the only network endpoint we touch, and only if you choose to back up. — Built for iOS — Safari Share Extension. App Intents. Dynamic Type-aware reader. SwiftData persistence. Light-only by design — the cream palette is the point. — Quietly made — ReadTrace Pro is small. One developer, one design system, one belief: the web is full of writing worth reading carefully, and that writing deserves a calm, paper-feeling home you can return to. For people who want a smaller, quieter library — not an algorithmic feed.

LightYou — Your Reading Library, Reimagined Save every article worth reading. Highlight what matters. Ask AI anything about your library. LightYou turns the web into your personal, searchable knowledge vault. ▸ SAVE IN ONE TAP Share from Safari, Twitter, or anywhere on iOS. LightYou extracts the article content — no ads, no clutter, just the words. ▸ BEAUTIFUL READER Customize font, size, and theme (light, sepia, dark). Reader view strips out distractions so you can focus on what matters. ▸ HIGHLIGHT & ANNOTATE Select any text to highlight it in three colors. Add private notes. Your highlights become a searchable knowledge base. ▸ AI-POWERED UNDERSTANDING Chat with any article — ask questions, get summaries, translate passages, or explain difficult concepts. Powered by your choice of LLM API. ▸ SPACED REPETITION REVIEW LightYou surfaces articles worth revisiting on a spaced schedule, so the ideas you care about stay with you long-term. ▸ HOME SCREEN WIDGET A beautiful iOS widget keeps your top review items one glance away — with native dark mode support. ▸ WEBDAV SYNC Sync articles, highlights, and notes across all your devices via your own WebDAV server. Your data stays yours — no third-party accounts required. ▸ PRIVACY FIRST All articles stored locally on your device. AI requests use your own API keys. Optional WebDAV sync uses your own server. We never see your data. ▸ OFFLINE READING Saved articles are cached locally — read anytime, anywhere, with no connection. ▸ BEAUTIFUL IN BOTH LANGUAGES Full Chinese and English support, with typography that respects each language. Whether you're a researcher, student, writer, or just a curious reader, LightYou helps you go from "I'll read this later" to actually reading, understanding, and remembering. Start building your library today.