Fable Frog vs Spine

The best way to enjoy your audiobooks. Fable Frog is a native iOS client for Audiobookshelf — built from the ground up for a premium listening experience. Connect to your self-hosted server and enjoy your library with a beautiful, feature-packed player designed for how you actually listen. PLAYBACK THAT JUST WORKS • Variable speed (0.5x – 3x) and volume boost up to 200% • Sleep timer with presets, custom duration, or end of chapter • Shake to extend your timer without opening your phone • Chapter navigation with durations at a glance • Bookmarks with notes up to 5,000 characters • Per-book playback settings that remember how you like each title • AirPlay streaming to your favorite speakers YOUR LIBRARY, YOUR WAY • Browse by books, authors, series, narrators, or genres • Filter by progress and genre, sort by title, author, date added, duration, or last listened • Instant search across your entire library • Follow series and track upcoming releases automatically • Create custom playlists, rate and review books • Alphabetical index for jumping through large collections OFFLINE DOWNLOADS Download books and listen anywhere — no connection needed. Smart Downloads automatically grab your next listen and clean up finished titles. Wi-Fi only mode keeps your data plan safe. LISTENING STATISTICS Understand your listening life with daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly charts. See genre breakdowns, top series rankings, speed savings, finished book trophies, and fun facts about your habits. CARPLAY A dedicated driving interface built for safe, distraction-free listening in the car. Large touch targets, simplified controls, and quick access to recent and library books. WIDGETS Lock screen widget with a circular progress gauge for your current listen. iOS 18 Control Center widgets for quick play/pause without leaving what you're doing. MAKE IT YOURS • 20 themes including 3 accessibility-optimized options • Custom app icons (Neon, Sunset, Forest) • 6 text size levels from XS to XXL • Customizable lock screen widget icons • Configurable skip durations and player controls BUILT FOR EVERYONE • Full VoiceOver support with comprehensive labels and adjustable controls • Voice Control compatible — navigate by voice • Dynamic Type support — text scales to 200%+ with in-app size slider • Accessibility themes: High Contrast (AAA), Blue-Orange (CVD), Pink-Teal (CVD) • Differentiate Without Color support — shapes and icons supplement color • All themes validated for WCAG AA contrast standards • Respects Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency system settings • Car mode with extra-large touch targets • Siri integration for hands-free playback control PRIVACY FIRST No analytics. No telemetry. No tracking. No ads. Your data stays between your device and your server — nothing else. Credentials are stored exclusively in the iOS Keychain. CONNECTS TO YOUR SETUP • Username/password and OIDC authentication (Keycloak, Authelia, Authentik, and more) • Custom HTTP headers for reverse proxies (Caddy, Nginx, Traefik) • Multi-library support on the same server • Automatic token refresh and session management Available in 15+ languages with full RTL support. Requires a self-hosted Audiobookshelf server (v2.x). Fable Frog is an independent third-party client and is not affiliated with the Audiobookshelf project. Terms of Service: https://fablefrog.app/terms Apple EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stddla/ Privacy Policy: https://fablefrog.app/privacy

Spine is the audiobook app you'll actually leave open. It streams from your own cloud library, syncs with Hardcover, and turns the habit of listening into something worth coming back to with listener levels, daily streaks, and a year-in-review Recap bright enough to share. Built native for iOS 26, with Liquid Glass, serif typography, and a player carved into the book's detail page. No subscription. No ads. No in-app purchases. No account to create with us. Bring your own library, keep your own data. WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT • ONE PAGE FOR THE BOOK: No separate Now Playing screen. Cover, scrubber, transport, speed, sleep timer, chapters, and bookmarks all live inline on the detail page, on an ambient backdrop tinted by the cover. • CHAPTERS THAT JUST WORK: Single-file M4B audiobooks expose their chapters automatically. Cloud folders with multiple M4Bs split into separate library entries. No manual editing, no reprocessing. • HARDCOVER SYNC: Just listen. Spine logs progress and finished books to Hardcover, pulls cover art, genre, and structured series data, and keeps your shelves in sync. • ON-DEVICE INTELLIGENCE: Open the next book in a tracked series and Spine writes a two-sentence "previously on…" recap from what you've already finished. It also rewrites bloated marketing descriptions into a calm summary, captions your Recap, and cleans up filename-salad titles. All on Apple's on-device foundation model. Nothing about your library leaves the phone. • LEVELS, STREAKS, AND GOALS: Lifetime hours unlock six tiers, from Sapling to Oracle. A unified daily/yearly goal card, a streak chip, and a year-spanning heatmap show the shape of your habit at a glance. • A RECAP YOU'LL WANT TO SHARE: Five bright screens covering hours, finished books, top author and genre, monthly rhythm, and the books you marked Read on Hardcover. One tap stitches the whole thing into a postable image. • PLAYBACK THAT PAYS ATTENTION: Step away for a moment and Spine rewinds a few seconds when you press play. The sleep timer fades audio gently to zero. Finish a series entry and the next book surfaces automatically. • LIVE ON THE LOCK SCREEN: Live Activities follow the current book onto the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, with a tappable Play/Pause. The home-screen widget mirrors the same control on a cover-tinted backdrop, toggle playback in one tap, even when Spine isn't running. • BOOKMARKS WORTH KEEPING: Tap to mark any moment with a written note. Tap to jump back later. • SEARCH THAT POINTS SOMEWHERE: Open the search tab cold and you get a trending-genre card tuned to what you actually listen to, a Discover list of Audible new releases, and trending shortcuts. Most people aren't searching their own shelf, they're looking for the next thing. • EVERY BOOK IS A DOORWAY: Detail pages carry "More by author", "Top in genre", and a "Part of {Series}" rail that interleaves the books you own with the Hardcover siblings you don't, in reading order, right under your bookmarks. • CLOUD LIBRARY, REPAIRED IN ONE TAP: When a cloud title expires or goes stale, Spine flags it on the detail page and offers a one-tap re-download. No re-adding, no losing your progress. • SPOTLIGHT-INDEXED: Search your library from anywhere in iOS. PRIVACY BY DEFAULT Spine has no servers, no analytics, and no third-party SDKs. API keys live in the iOS Keychain. Your library, listening history, and bookmarks stay on your device (and sync via your own iCloud, if you enable it). The on-device AI features run on Apple Intelligence — your books never leave the phone. REQUIREMENTS • iPhone running iOS 26. • A cloud audiobook library. • A free Hardcover account is recommended for metadata, search, and read sync. • Apple Intelligence-eligible device is required for the optional AI features (everything else works without it).