Comparison

PocketBook Reader vs Apricity

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

Head to head
About

PocketBook Reader

This app is a versatile reader supporting 26 book and audio formats, including EPUB, PDF, and audiobooks. It offers features like PDF reflow, text-to-speech, cloud synchronization, and extensive customization options for a comfortable reading experience.

Highlights
  • Supports 26 book and audio formats
  • PDF Reflow function
  • Text-to-speech engine
  • Cloud synchronization service
  • Customizable interface and reading settings
  • Adobe DRM support
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

PocketBook Reader is a free app for reading all formats (books, magazines, textbooks, comic books, etc.) and listening to audiobooks! The application supports 26 book and audio formats, including mobi, epub, fb2, cbz, cbr. Read without ads and with total comfort! Choose any content - any format! • Support of 19 book formats, including the most popular - EPUB, FB2, MOBI, PDF, DJVU, DOCX, RTF, TXT, HTML; • Comic book formats CBR and CBZ; • Open books protected with Adobe DRM (PDF, EPUB); • PDF Reflow function (reflow text in PDF files). Listen to audiobooks! • You can listen to audiobooks and other audio files in MP3, M4B, and take notes in them; • Built-in TTS (Text-to-speech) engine for the voicing of the text files. Download and sync content easily! • Free PocketBook Cloud service for synchronizing all your books, including audiobooks, as well as reading positions, notes and bookmarks on all your devices; • Your files from Dropbox or Google Books services are easily connected to the app to create one consolidated library. You can even connect multiple accounts at the same time; • Support for OPDS catalogs - get access to network libraries; • ISBN scanner, for quick search of electronic versions of books by barcode; • Opportunity to borrow books and periodicals; • If you have a E Ink e-reader PocketBook, you can easily synchronize all your books and accounts just by scanning a QR code. Ready to switch from another app? No problem! Getting started with PocketBook Reader is easy! With an intuitive interface, the application provides you with unprecedented freedom – lots of options for settings and no restrictions. Choose, change, customize, and personalize! • Intuitive interface, easy navigation, and minimalistic design; • Opportunity to choose one of the seven interface color themes, reassign the buttons and display areas; • Two night-reading modes - for better reading comfort anytime; • Adjust the font style, font size, line spacing, and margin size; • Animation of turning pages; • Opportunity to crop margins – make the page look exactly the way you want. Get fast file access and easy search! • All files are quickly found and instantly opened, even with built-in audio and video fragments; • Your books will never be lost in the device’s memory - thanks to the smart search, scanning files on your tablet or smartphone is a matter of seconds. Any file or document can be found in a few clicks! • The app allows you to sort books, create collections, filter and mark files as you like. Your library - your rules; • Convenient managing of audio files - it is easy to sort and play your audiobooks. Make bookmarks, take notes, add comments! • You can quickly find all your notes and share them with friends via email or messengers; • Collect all your notes, bookmarks, and comments into separate files for even greater convenience. PocketBook Reader was created by avid readers for avid readers, and that’s why it’s probably the best e-book reader app.

About

Apricity

This app offers a comprehensive reading and note-taking experience, allowing users to import various document types, listen to books with customizable voices, and annotate PDFs. It also includes a digital notebook with handwriting recognition and audio recording features.

Highlights
  • Read aloud with customizable voices
  • Import PDF, EPUB, Word, MOBI, FB2, Markdown, text files
  • Annotate PDFs and documents
  • Digital notebook with handwriting recognition
  • Audio recording synchronized with notes
  • Focus timer with soundscapes
  • iCloud sync for notes and highlights
Features
Read full description

Apricity (n.): the warmth of the sun on a winter's day. The best reading happens late, when the house is quiet and a single lamp makes a small warm room inside the dark. Apricity is built around that feeling: a reading room for your books, a voice to read them to you, and a desk for your notes. SOMEONE TO READ TO YOU Read Aloud lights up each sentence as it's read, plays on with the screen locked and in CarPlay, and has a sleep timer. Choose Apple's voices or 54 natural voices in eight languages, made on your device. Character Voice gives a story's characters a voice of their own, and Expressive Reading lets a whispered line sound whispered. Siri knows it: "Read my book in Apricity." YOUR BOOKS, ON REAL SHELVES Add a PDF, EPUB, Word document, MOBI, FB2, Markdown or text file and it stands on a wooden shelf, lit by a lamp at night and daylight by morning. Pick one of four bookcases, stand books by cover or spine, and keep some in a cabinet. Furnish it with 21 themes, 21 wallpapers or your photo, 13 woods, seven lamps and shelf decorations. THE WEB AND THE CLASSICS Paste a link or share a page from Safari, and its story becomes a book, ready to read or hear at once. Or turn the bookcase to thousands of free public-domain classics, shelved by kind like a bookshop's; pick one and it's yours in seconds. TWO WAYS TO READ Original shows the page exactly as published, recoloured for the light you read by. Reflow sets the words like a book, in the face, size and spacing you choose. Scans are read too, and comics and manga open as pages, manga right to left. Highlight, keep notes, look up words and see how much you've read this week. KEEP THE LINES YOU LOVE Save a quote or a word as you read; the Quote of the Day and Word of the Day widgets bring them back each morning. WRITE ON YOUR PDFS Markup puts the notebook's pens on a PDF's own pages: circle a figure, answer a worksheet, and the PDF stays as it was. Split View keeps a notebook open beside the book. NOTEBOOKS THAT FEEL LIKE PAPER Write with Apple Pencil or a finger; pinch in close and the page stays sharp. Neat Writing tidies your hand, and shapes snap clean. Pages come in 81 kinds of paper, from Cornell notes to music staff. Add stickers, photos and sticky notes, choose from 30 covers, and search your handwriting. Notability and GoodNotes notes come in as ink you can keep editing. RECORD THE LECTURE Record as you write, then tap your writing to hear that moment again. Transcripts are made on your device, and with Apple Intelligence, Smart Notes sums up a notebook or quizzes you on it. SOMETHING TO READ BY A fire in the grate, birdsong, rain on the roof, jazz in a busy café: four soundscapes made on the device, and a focus timer to study by. YOUR BOOKS STAY WITH YOU There is no account; your books stay on your device, and iCloud sync carries your highlights, notes, Markup, notebooks and recordings to your other devices. FREE AND PREMIUM Free, for good: every kind of book, pages from the web, the free classics, shelves, both ways of reading, highlights, notes, Markup, every book's notebook, your own notebooks with the seven Classic covers, recording, and iCloud sync. Apricity Premium adds Read Aloud with every voice, transcripts, Smart Notes, exporting notes and notebooks, the Crafted and Illustrated covers, stickers, stamps and washi tape, the soundscapes and focus timer, furnishing the room, and your own fonts. Every new reader gets 14 days of Premium free, with no card asked for. After that, Apricity Premium is an auto-renewing yearly subscription. Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase. It renews automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and you can manage or cancel it in your Apple Account settings. When Premium ends, nothing you made is deleted. Made by Tesorin. Terms of Use: https://www.trytesorin.com/apricity/terms Privacy Policy: https://www.trytesorin.com/apricity/privacy

Screenshots

PocketBook Reader4 screens
Apricity4 screens

Verdict

The call

PocketBook Reader and Apricity both sit at 4.5 stars, but that hides the real split: 100% of Apricity's written reviews are positive against 55% of PocketBook Reader's. Apricity also leads on update cadence (daily vs every 2 months). PocketBook Reader's advantage is ratings volume (10K vs 6) and chart position (#165 vs unranked). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases 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. PocketBook Reader sells 42 one-off in-app purchases and Apricity sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $14.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

PocketBook Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: PocketBook Reader has 10K ratings behind it against 6, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 55% of PocketBook Reader's written reviews are positive against 100% of Apricity's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

PocketBook Reader ships an update every 2 months, Apricity daily. The most recent releases landed on October 28, 2026 and October 26, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
PocketBook Reader versus Apricity: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPocketBook ReaderApricity
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (10K ratings) — better4.3 (6 ratings)
Positive reviews54.5% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings10K — better6
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsDaily — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFreemium
Best chart rank#165 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS13.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size106 MB212 MB
Age rating9+4+
DeveloperPocketbook International SA16697518 Canada Inc.

Customer experience

PocketBook Reader

All ratings9,831 ratings
Positive87.4%
Neutral3.9%
Negative8.7%
Written reviews1,350 reviews
Positive54.5%
Neutral11.6%
Negative33.9%

Apricity

All ratings6 ratings
Positive83.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative16.7%
Written reviews5 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

PocketBook Reader

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Books disappearing from library after login issues
  • Inability to open DRM-protected PDFs
  • Inconsistent behavior when switching between portrait and landscape modes
  • Text-to-speech voice quality issues

Requested features

5 requests
  • Ability to organize books into custom folders
  • Option to disable quick action zones
  • Improved text-to-speech controls (seek, pause, etc.)
  • Support for handwritten annotations with Apple Pencil
  • Faster page turning and scrolling

Apricity

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

42 purchases

PocketBook Reader

One-time42
  • eBook3 variants$0.99
  • eBook (class A)$0.99
  • eBook2 variants$1.99
Show 39 more
  • eBook (class B)$1.99
  • eBook$2.95
  • eBook2 variants$2.99
  • eBook (class C)$2.99
  • eBook3 variants$3.99
  • eBook: type 4.79$3.99
  • eBook: type 4.19$3.99
  • eBook (class D)$3.99
  • eBook (class Alt5)$4.99
  • eBook: type 5.39$4.99
  • eBook (class F)$4.99
  • eBook: type 5.89$4.99
  • eBook$4.99
  • eBook: type 5.09$4.99
  • eBook (class G)$5.99
  • eBook2 variants$5.99
  • eBook: type 7.09$5.99
  • eBook: type 7.19$5.99
  • eBook: type 8.29$6.99
  • eBook: type 7.59$6.99
  • eBook3 variants$7.99
  • eBook: type 8.89$7.99
  • eBook (class J)$8.99
  • eBook$8.99
  • eBook: type 10.9$9.90
  • eBook$9.90
  • eBook3 variants$9.99
  • eBook (class L)$10.99
  • eBook: type 13.9$11.90
  • eBook$11.99
  • eBook: type 12.99$11.99
  • eBook$12.99
  • eBook (class N)$12.99
  • eBook (class O)$13.99
  • eBook: type 17.9$14.90
  • eBook$14.99
  • eBook (class R)$16.99
  • eBook (class T)$18.99
  • eBook (class W)$21.99
1 purchases

Apricity

Subscriptions1
  • Apricity Premium$14.991 Year

Questions

Is PocketBook Reader free?
PocketBook Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Apricity free?
Apricity is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, PocketBook Reader or Apricity?
PocketBook Reader is rated higher. PocketBook Reader averages 4.5 out of 5 from 10K ratings, while Apricity averages 4.3 from 6 ratings.
Do PocketBook Reader or Apricity have ads?
Neither PocketBook Reader nor Apricity shows ads.
Which is updated more often, PocketBook Reader or Apricity?
PocketBook Reader ships an update every 2 months, and Apricity daily. Most recently, PocketBook Reader was updated on October 28, 2026 and Apricity on October 26, 2026.

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