Athene Reader vs Earlo

Athene is a reader for the books you already own. Bring your books from Files, from Mail, from your computer over Wi‑Fi, from a link, or from anywhere that can share a file, and they go on a shelf that looks like one. EPUB and PDF open as they are; MOBI, AZW3, Word, FB2, TXT and HTML files become books as they arrive. Free classics from Project Gutenberg are a tap away. If you keep your library on a calibre server, Athene browses that shelf too — on your home network, or from anywhere through your own VPN such as Tailscale. THE PAGE Open a book and the app steps back. Just the page, on white, sepia or night paper, or paper in any colour you like, in the typeface and size you read best, including any Google Font. Highlight a passage, add a note, drop a bookmark, and find them all again under Marks. The shelf itself follows the time of day — Morning, Sunset, Night — or stays on the one you pick. NOTES YOU CAN DRAW Type a note in the margin, or sketch in it. On a PDF, mark up the page itself with Apple Pencil. LISTEN Any book, read aloud in a warm, natural voice that runs entirely on your device, and keeps reading with the screen locked. The voice is a one-time download of about 242 MB. A DICTIONARY Select a word to see what it means and how to say it. It is built in, and it works offline. ASK THE PAGE Tap the owl while you read and ask about what is in front of you. Who is she again? What did that word mean? What just happened? The Owl answers from the pages around where you are — this chapter at most, never the whole book, never your other books — and if the pages do not say, it tells you that instead of guessing. YOUR MODEL, YOUR CHOICE On a device with Apple Intelligence, the Owl thinks on the device and nothing you ask is sent anywhere. Or point it at your own Ollama server on your own network. Or bring a key from Claude, OpenRouter or OpenAI. Athene asks before the first question leaves the device, names the address it would send to, and remembers your answer. ON EVERY DEVICE Turn on iCloud Sync and your place, highlights, notes, drawings, collections and reading settings follow you between your iPhone and iPad. It goes only to your own private iCloud, and what you wrote is encrypted on your device first. With a calibre server, your highlights and how far you've read can go back to your calibre library too. PRIVATE BY CONSTRUCTION Athene has no account, no analytics and no servers of its own. Your books, your notes and your questions stay on your device or go only where you have pointed them. The privacy policy says the same, in plain words. FREE Reading is free. No account, no subscription, no limit: the shelf, the reader, Listen, the dictionary, the Owl, iCloud Sync, your calibre server, your highlights and notes. Nothing in Athene is for sale. Athene requires iOS 26. The on-device Owl requires Apple Intelligence (iPhone 15 Pro and later, M-series iPad, iPad mini A17 Pro); on other devices the Owl works with your own Ollama server or an API key.

Make an audiobook of your next read. Redefining Text To Speech, All Offline. Earlo turns your books, documents and research papers into a personal listening library. Speech is generated on your device, so you can read and listen to saved documents offline without an Earlo account. Bring your own reading Import EPUB, PDF, TXT, Markdown, HTML, RTF and DOCX files. Paste text, save a webpage, or recognize text in photos and scanned pages. Review an import before adding it to your library. Earlo does not remove DRM. Read and listen together Follow the spoken word, tap to move to a passage, and return to narration after browsing. Switch between readable text and the original PDF. Adjust reading settings, use the full-screen reader, and resume from your saved position. Listen your way Choose a voice, adjust playback speed, set a sleep timer and build a listening queue. Add pronunciation corrections and choose passages to omit from narration while keeping the original text intact. Export a book, chapter, page range or selected passage as MP3 audio. Keep useful ideas close Organize your library into collections, search titles and document text, and save notes and bookmarks. Export notes as Markdown and research citations as RIS or BibTeX. Daily streaks and listening activity help you see your reading routine. Make time for research Find papers by DOI or arXiv identifier, or import PDF attachments from your Zotero library. Research reading can skip recognized citations and reference lists. Complex equations, tables and scanned text may need review against the original document. More languages, on your device English narration is joined by preview voices for Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. Automatic language detection can switch voices between supported-language paragraphs. The interface is available in ten languages, including Arabic with right-to-left layout. Interface language does not translate your documents or add Arabic narration. Built around your Apple devices Use Earlo on iPhone and iPad, with optional private iCloud sync. Control iPhone playback and save bookmarks from the paired Apple Watch companion. Siri, Shortcuts, widgets and Lock Screen controls keep listening within reach. Saved reading and narration work offline. Web imports, research lookups, Zotero and iCloud sync require an internet connection. Apple Watch playback depends on the paired iPhone. Made by Boston Research Journals, USA.