Auread vs Sheafs

Auread turns your audiobooks into a read-along experience. It transcribes the narration right on your device and highlights each word in sync with the audio — so you can listen and follow the text at the same time. WHY AUREAD • BUILT-IN FREE CATALOG — Browse LibriVox public-domain audiobooks, download one, and Auread fetches the matching Gutenberg text automatically: a complete read-along in two taps. • LISTENING STATS — Daily goal ring, streaks, and a week / month / year dashboard. • REAL CHAPTERS — Titles and headings inside the text, start time and length in the chapter menu, chapter or book timing at a tap. • Real read-along — words light up as they’re spoken, with smooth auto-scroll. • On-device transcription — no ebook required; Auread generates the text itself, privately. • Your speed — 0.5×–2× with preserved pitch, saved per book or globally. • A reading view you’ll love — adjustable size, themes, progressive illumination, Dynamic Type. • Automatic covers for your library. • Import anything — audio files, ZIPs of MP3s, even EPUB text. Built-in conversion. • Works offline — listen and read anywhere. PRIVACY FIRST Auread has no account and no server. Your audio, text, transcripts and progress never leave your device. Transcription runs entirely on-device. The only network use is fetching public book covers (title + author), anonymously, and the free catalog when you use it. LANGUAGES Interface in English, French, Spanish and German. Transcription supports multiple languages. Built for audiobook lovers, language learners, and anyone who reads better while listening.

Sheafs is an open-source ebook reader. I wanted one that felt like reading a paperback and worked with the books and servers I already had, so I made one. The code’s on GitHub under the MIT license, and there are no ads, no tracking and no account to sign up for. Bring your own books. Sheafs reads EPUB 2 and EPUB 3. Import them from Files, or point it at an OPDS catalog and download straight from it. If your library lives on a home server, add its OPDS feed and browse the whole collection from the couch. A few free public catalogs are built in, so there’s something to read straight away. Keep your place on your own terms. Sheafs speaks KOReader’s sync protocol, so you can run your own sync server and pick up where you left off, whether you were last reading in Sheafs or in KOReader. Sheafs lays your books out in proper pages, with good type and decent margins. Swipe to turn and the page curls over under your thumb, the way paper does. If that’s a bit much, there’s a plain slide too, or you can turn pages with the volume buttons. Got an iPhone Duo? This is where it gets fun. Closed, you read one page on the cover screen. Open it up and you get a two-page spread, with the fold running down the middle like the gutter of a real book. Fold or unfold halfway through a chapter and you won’t lose your line. Prop it half open on the table and the page sits up top with the controls underneath. Perfect for reading over breakfast. On iPad, turn it sideways for a two-page spread. Pick from nine typefaces, including New York, Georgia, Palatino, Charter and Iowan Old Style, then fiddle with size, spacing and margins until it looks right. Justified or ragged, hyphenated or not. There’s a paper theme, a sepia one, a dark one for late nights and a pure black one for OLED screens, or it can follow your phone’s light and dark mode. Highlight the good bits in five colors, add your own notes, and share them all as Markdown when you’re done. Search the whole book and bookmark the pages you want to come back to. A Home Screen widget gets you back to whatever you were reading. Mark up pages with Apple Pencil, or your finger on iPhone. Underline, bracket a passage or scribble in the margin, and your marks stay with their words when you change the font or text size. Lost track of who someone is? Ask about the book, and Apple’s on-device model answers from only the pages you’ve already read, so it can’t spoil what’s coming. Nothing leaves your device. Ask needs Apple Intelligence and stays off until you turn it on.