ReaderView vs Recto Writer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ReaderView
Transform cluttered web pages and documents into a clean, distraction-free reading experience. Save articles, videos, and more for offline access, with features like highlighting, note-taking, and full-text search.
- Distraction-free reading mode
- Save content for offline access
- Highlight passages and add notes
- Full-text search across saved articles
- Organize content with folders
- Sync across devices with iCloud
Read full descriptionHide full description
Web pages, documents, podcasts, and videos can be difficult to save, read, and search later. ReaderView transforms them into clean, distraction-free articles so you can focus on what matters. Save content for later, read offline, highlight important passages, and quickly find them again. ReaderView works with: - Web articles and blog posts - PDF documents, including images, tables, and mathematical formulas - Word documents and text files - Apple Podcasts and Spotify podcast episodes - YouTube videos - Vimeo and Dailymotion videos - X/Twitter posts, long-form articles, and videos TRANSCRIPTS THAT FEEL LIKE ARTICLES ReaderView looks for publisher-provided captions before generating a transcript, giving you faster and more accurate results whenever captions are available. With media transcripts, you can: - Read while listening or watching - Tap a word or timestamp to jump to that moment - Follow synchronized highlighting and automatic scrolling - Summarize any article with on-device Apple Intelligence (supported devices only) - Navigate with source-provided or automatically generated chapters - Play, pause, seek, and adjust playback speed - Show or hide videos for a distraction-free reading experience - Keep videos visible while scrolling when shown - Cancel queued transcriptions - Download source media when available READ, ORGANIZE, AND FIND EVERYTHING - Open a clean Reader View with a single tap - Listen with high-quality voices that work offline - Save articles and images for offline reading - Highlight passages and add notes - Search across your entire library - Find text within individual articles - Organize articles into folders - Sync across devices with iCloud - Find saved articles using Spotlight - Read comfortably with Dark Mode and Auto-Scroll - Support for Asian and right-to-left languages, including Arabic and Hebrew COPY, SHARE, AND EXPORT Export articles as plain text, Markdown, HTML, WebVTT, or PDF. You can also copy or share the original link. WebVTT is available for timestamped media transcripts. Share content with ReaderView from Safari, Apple News, X/Twitter, Feedly, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Word, and many other apps. When captions are unavailable, automatic on-device transcription for podcasts and X/Twitter videos requires iOS 26 or later. Have feedback or ideas? Contact laurent@appblit.com. If ReaderView helps you, an App Store review would mean a lot.
Recto Writer
Read full descriptionHide full description
Recto is a word processor for people writing books. Arrange your projects on your bookshelf. THE OUTLINE IS THE BOOK For pantsers and plotters alike, arrange your outline or infer it from your book. Your outline is always there for you to quickly glance at and jump to that section of your book. FRONT MATTER THAT KNOWS WHAT IT IS Keep your book's blurb, back cover description, and other information in one place so it's easy to export to EPUB. YOUR WORDS STAY YOURS No proprietary files or storage systems. Every book is stored as Markdown so you can open it in any editor. All files are kept in your own iCloud. WHEN THE DRAFT IS DONE Export to EPUB, Word, PDF, Markdown, HTML or plain text. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE Kill Your Darlings, except you can also keep them and reuse them later in this book or the next book. Placeholders, for the fact you will look up later. Drop a flag and keep writing. Daily word goals, timed sprints, and a chart of the last thirty days. Find and replace across the whole book, spellcheck, typewriter scrolling, five reading typefaces and three styles of drop cap. FREE Recto is free. There is no trial, no subscription and no in-app purchases lurking in the shadows to steal your lunch money. If it becomes part of how you work and you want to say thank you, there's an opportunity to send me a tip. But it's not necessary. You can also email me and just say hi. WITH THANKS Recto is a native rewrite of NEO, the word processor Hugh Howey wrote and released under the MIT License. The outline, the scene breaks, and the idea that a writing app should get out of the way are all his. Recto shares none of his code and all of his intent.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Recto Writer at none against ReaderView's 1. ReaderView's advantage is iOS requirement (16.0 vs 26.0). On price, update cadence, ads and device support 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
Both are free to download. ReaderView sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Recto Writer asks for nothing beyond the download.
ReaderView ships an update every 2 days, Recto Writer every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 26, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | ReaderView | Recto Writer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (67 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 88.6% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 67 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days — better | Every 3 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 20 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | AppBlit LLC | Prashant Sridharan |
Bugs and requests
ReaderView
Reported bugs
10 issues- Unable to read PDFs from web
- Images get blurred in saved files
- Error message: "No Content Yet"
- App not working on iPhone 13 Pro
- Lost all folders and files
Show 5 moreShow fewer
- Forces sharing its own link
- Disabled copy-paste
- Comments not appearing in reader view
- Formatting issues: gaps between lines
- App not working with Apple's News app (iOS 10)
Requested features
18 requests- Support for Simplified Chinese
- Folders displayed on home page
- In-App Purchase for macOS version
- Swipe to go back/exit function
- Dark mode in reading mode
Show 13 moreShow fewer
- More color options, tags, and note management tools
- Sync with Instapaper
- Add comments along with annotations
- Import Instapaper articles with highlights
- Filter highlights by color
- Text search function
- Return to page location after exiting reader
- Sync saved stories across devices
- Sync with Evernote and Dropbox with tags
- Copy all text function
- Copy text feature for text-to-speech
- Sync with Evernote
- Change default colors
Recto Writer
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
ReaderView
- ReaderView PRO$4.99
Recto Writer
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is ReaderView free?
Is Recto Writer free?
Do ReaderView or Recto Writer have ads?
Which is updated more often, ReaderView or Recto Writer?
Other comparisons















