Introducing Thorium Reader on iOS

Alongside the release of Thorium Reader on the AppStore, we're also launching this new blog where you'll be able to keep track of everything related to our mobile and desktop apps.

With this first post, we'd like explain the philosophy behind Thorium Reader and what you can expect from us in the future.

Read it your way

With our desktop app, Thorium Reader has a long standing tradition of putting accessibility in the front seat.

"Read it your way" is our renewed commitment to this principle.

We know that everyone is unique and what works best for you, might be different from what works best for someone else.

Among other things, this means:

• an easy way to switch back and forth between reading and listening
• preferences that you can set per publication, to make sure that every book that you read feels right
• reading options that put you in control of your reading experience

Expect upcoming features that will lean into this philosophy without getting in the way of the overall user experience.

Bring your own books

With print books, readers are free to stack books on their nightstand, no matter where they come from:

• a novel bought at your local bookstore
• a manga gifted by a friend
• a guidebook borrowed from your public library to plan your next trip
• a textbook that you bought for your university classes

But with digital publications, we're often forced to use different apps, without the ability to bring all your content in the same place.

With Thorium Reader, we we're building a place where you can:

• download public domains or open-licensed content available on the Web
• borrow ebooks, audiobooks and magazines from your library
• download everything that you've purchased from your favorite online retailer

For those of you who self-host their collection of ebooks/audiobooks/comics, we got you covered as well, thanks to our upcoming support for OPDS.

With this blog, we'll also shine a light on retailers, websites and library vendors that are compatible with Thorium Reader.

The first step of our journey

With our initial release, we've focused on the reading experience for ebooks and comics.

You can already:

• import EPUB, PDF or CBZ files
• including LCP protected files that you can buy from a retailer or borrow from a library
• read ebooks and customize your reading experience
• listen to EPUB files with an audiobook-like experience powered by on-device synthesized speech (also known as TTS or Text-to-Speech)

If you're wondering what's next, our focus is currently on audio and our upcoming releases in Spring will bring support for audiobooks and an extended set of features for listening.

For an exclusive look at our upcoming features, make sure to subscribe to this blog or to join our community on Discord.

See you next time!