Comma Reader

Getting started

The first launch sets things up, and there's something to read straight away. Books come in from Files or from Standard Ebooks.

Welcome screen

Checks the device's on-device AI. It tells you whether Apple Intelligence features are ready, turned off, still downloading or not supported, with a shortcut to Settings. The Get Started button stays pinned on every iPhone size.

Sample book

The Great Gatsby is in the library on first launch. With iCloud Sync it's the same book on every device, never a duplicate.

Import from Files

Add EPUB and PDF files from iCloud Drive, On My iPhone/iPad or any Files location.

Standard Ebooks

Browse standardebooks.org inside the app, with Back, Forward and Reload. Tap an EPUB download and the book goes straight into your library. Links to other sites open in your browser.

What happens on import

• Title, author and cover are read from the book.
• PDFs get a cover made from their first page.
• The same book is never added twice.
• The book is placed in a category automatically, by Apple Intelligence where it's available.
• With iCloud Sync, the book uploads for your other devices. Pro

Space check

Before an import or a download, Comma checks there's room on the device and says so clearly if there isn't.

Your library

The All Books tab. It's a cover grid with filters, a menu on every book, and a select mode for bulk changes.

Cover grid

Four covers across on iPhone. On iPad and Mac the grid adapts to the window width. Books without artwork get a typographic cover.

Filters

Narrow the library by format (EPUB or PDF), by built-in category, by your own categories, or by author.

Book menu

Long-press a cover or tap its ⋯ button:

• More Info opens the book's details (below).
• Update Category: pick one of the 18 built-in categories, or create your own with a name and an icon.
• Update Cover: search Google Images for a cover, save it, then choose it from Photos or Files.
• Offload removes the download but keeps the book in your library, ready to download again from iCloud. Pro
• Remove offers Delete Everywhere or Remove Download.

Your own categories

Name a category and choose an SF Symbol icon for it. It replaces the automatic category for that book everywhere: on the Shelf, in filters and in the Explorer. With iCloud Sync, your categories reach all your devices.

Select mode Pro

Select several books to delete them at once, or to offload them.

Offloaded books Pro

Keep their cover, details, highlights and progress, and carry an iCloud mark. Open one and it downloads first, with a Downloading… indicator. This works from anywhere a book can be opened.

More Info

An About This Book sheet (About This Document for PDFs) with:

• cover, title and author
• format, category and file size
• publisher, publication date and page count
• date added and reading progress
• a description

The description comes from the book itself, otherwise from Open Library, then Google Books. If nothing is found, a Search the Web button opens your browser.

Shelf

Your books on shelves, grouped by category or by author. The menu in the header switches between Categories, Authors and Highlights & Notes.

Currently Reading

The first shelf in both views. It holds the ten books you opened most recently, newest first, and appears once you've opened a book.

Category shelves

One shelf per category, largest first, with Uncategorized last. A book's own category, if you set one, takes priority.

Author shelves

One shelf for each author with two or more books. Authors with a single book share a More Authors shelf, with names under the covers.

Shelf rows

Up to 20 covers stand on a ledge, ordered by when you last opened or added them. See All opens the whole shelf as a grid.

Long-press a cover

Open, or More Info.

Library Explorer button

Shows your three latest covers. Tap it to open the Explorer.

Highlights & Notes view

Your highlights, grouped by book. See Highlights & Notes.

Library Explorer

A full-screen wall of every cover in your library, slightly tilted and drawn with Metal. You can pan in any direction and never reach an edge.

Endless wall

Your library repeats in shuffled tiles, so even a few books fill the wall. Books you're reading sit in the middle, then other opened books, then unopened ones, newest first. Covers ripple in from the centre when the wall opens.

Pan and zoom

Drag with momentum and pinch to zoom, from a wall of tiny covers up to a single large one. Two-finger trackpad scrolling and the mouse wheel work on iPad and Mac.

Focus

Tap a cover and the wall glides to it, straightens, and lifts the cover with a soft glow. A card shows the title, author and progress, with an Open button. Tap empty space to step back out.

Group

None, Category, Author, or Date Added (This Week, This Month, then months and years). Each group becomes a labelled island on the wall.

Filters

• All
• Reading: books you've started
• Unread
• Finished
• Notes: books with highlights or excerpts

Covers that don't match dim and shrink in place, so the wall keeps its shape.

Shuffle

The dice button flies to a random unread book, within the current filter.

Reading EPUBs

Tap the page to show or hide the controls. The reader opens where you left off, or right at a passage when you come from a highlight, an excerpt or a search result.

Paginated or scroll

Turn pages, or scroll continuously through each chapter.

Reading card

A small glass card at the bottom shows the book title and how much is left in the book, the chapter name and how much is left in the chapter, and a chapter progress bar. Progress is measured to the end of what's on screen, so the last page reads End of chapter or End of book. It updates while you scroll, and when the font size or rotation changes.

Action bar

Contents, Search, Highlights, Read Aloud, Chapter Summary (with Apple Intelligence) and Reading Settings.

Contents

The book's table of contents. Tap a chapter to jump there.

Search in the book

Find every occurrence of a word or phrase, then jump to it.

Back button

After a jump from Contents, Search or a highlight, a Back button takes you to where you were. It also appears when you open the book at a passage from outside the reader.

Selection menu

• Highlight & Note
• Add to Excerpts
• Read from Here
• Copy
• Look Up

While text is selected, the controls stay out of the way, and a tap clears the selection instead of toggling the controls.

Two pages side by side

In paginated mode, an iPhone Duo open in landscape shows two pages, one each side of the fold, at every font size. Landscape iPad windows of any width do the same. Portrait stays one page.

Your place

Saved as you read, so every book reopens where you stopped.

Same place on every device Pro

With iCloud Sync your position follows you between devices, and it never moves backward.

Reading settings

Set these for one book, or for every book from Global Reader Settings. Reset returns to the defaults.

E-ink theme

Low-glare greys based on the measured paper and ink of E Ink Carta screens, lifted slightly for a lit display. There's a light and a dark version. Highlight and Read Aloud colours are muted to match.

Apply to All Books

Global Reader Settings sets the defaults for new books, and can apply them to every book at once. With iCloud Sync, the defaults reach all your devices.

Controls follow the theme

On light pages the reader's buttons use light glass with dark icons. On dark and sepia pages they use dark glass with light icons.

PDFs

PDFs offer Browsing mode only. Their pages are shown as designed.

Reading PDFs

PDFs open in Apple's native PDF engine, so pages are crisp and large documents open quickly.

Paginated or scroll

One page at a time, or a continuous scroll.

Highlights and excerpts

The selection menu includes Highlight & Note and Add to Excerpts. Highlights are drawn on the page in their colour.

Text view

Shows the current page's text in a plain, readable sheet. It tells you when a page is a scanned image with no text.

Page preview

Page thumbnails for moving around the document.

Highlights list

Every highlight in the document. Tap one to jump to it.

Reading card

Shows Page X of Y and how much is left in the document, with a bar for the whole document.

Appearance

Follows your Light or Dark Mode setting.

EPUB-only features: reading themes and fonts, Read Aloud, search inside the book, and chapter summaries.

Highlights & Notes

Highlight in four colours, add a note, then find, share and revisit everything from the Shelf.

Creating

Highlight & Note

Select text and choose Highlight & Note. The sheet shows the passage washed in your colour, the four colours , and an optional note of up to 4,000 characters. Tap Add Highlight.

Fits any screen

The sheet scrolls on short screens and keeps the Add button above the keyboard. In landscape the keyboard waits until you tap the note, so it doesn't cover the sheet.

In the reader

The Highlights button lists the book's highlights. Tap one to jump to it.

Browsing (Shelf › Highlights & Notes)

Search and filter

The search field shows your count, for example Search 128 highlights. Its filter searches highlight text, notes, book titles or authors. Active filters show as removable chips.

By book

Each book has a header (cover, title, counts, author) over a row of paper slips. Each slip shows a stroke in the highlight's colour, the passage, the note, and the chapter and page.

See All for a book

Every highlight in the book, with colour filter chips, Open Book and Share.

Highlight details

Where it's from (book, chapter, page), the passage, a one-tap colour change, the note and the date. Buttons: Share, Open in Book (jumps to the passage) and Delete.

Long-press a slip

Open in Book, Share, Copy, Delete.

Select mode

Select many highlights to share them (grouped by book) or delete them.

On every device Pro

With iCloud Sync, new highlights, colour changes, notes and deletions reach all your devices.

Excerpts

Passages you want to keep, without the highlight. Select text and tap Add to Excerpts, in EPUBs and PDFs alike.

Cover Flow

The Excerpts tab opens with a Cover Flow of the books you've collected from, most recent first. Swipe through them, or tap a side cover to bring it to the centre. Tap the centred cover to open the book.

Ambient colour

The background takes on the colours of the centred cover once it comes to rest.

Excerpt cards

Under the covers: the title, author and count, with Open Book and Share buttons. Then the book's excerpts, each with its chapter and page.

Long-press

On a card: Open in Book, Share, Copy, Delete. On a cover: Open, More Info, Share Excerpts.

Excerpt details

Where it's from, the passage, Open in Book and Delete.

Select mode

Select All (for the current book), Share or Delete.

On every device Pro

With iCloud Sync, excerpts and deletions reach all your devices.

Search

One search across your whole library.

What it finds

Books by title or author, highlights by their text or note, and excerpts by their text.

Every result opens

A book opens in the reader. A highlight or excerpt opens its sheet, and Open in Book jumps straight to the passage.

iPhone and iPad

On iPhone the tab bar turns into a search field at the bottom. On iPad the field is always visible and ready to type.

From Siri

Search in Comma Reader opens Search, filled in with what you said.

Read Aloud

Listen to any EPUB with Apple's system voices or with Comma's free, on-device neural voices.

Playback

Follows along

Highlights the sentence being read, and turns pages and chapters as it goes.

Transport

Floats above the reading card: previous sentence, play/pause, next sentence, and speed.

Speed

1×, 1.5×, 2×, 3× and 5×, with the voice's pitch kept natural. Neural voices go up to 1.5×. Speed works with both kinds of voice.

Picks up where you stopped

Remembers your place sentence by sentence. If you've moved ahead in the book, it starts from the page you're on.

Read from Here

Select a word or passage and choose Read from Here. Reading starts at the first selected word, with either kind of voice.

Background and Lock Screen

Keeps playing when you leave the app or lock the phone. The Lock Screen, Control Center, Dynamic Island and CarPlay show the book, author, chapter and cover, with play/pause, next and previous. Headphone buttons work too.

Interruptions

Pauses for calls and other audio, and resumes afterwards when the system says it should. Pauses when headphones disconnect.

Voices

System voices

Any voice installed on the device, including enhanced and premium ones, with a preview. More voices can be downloaded in Settings › Accessibility › Spoken Content › Voices.

Neural voices

Natural-sounding voices that run entirely on the device. Free, with no Pro needed.

• Six languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
• One download per language, about 550 MB.
• Several voices per language, with native speakers marked.
• Tap to preview a voice; delete a pack any time.
• Needs a device with about 6 GB of memory or more. On other devices the option is shown with an explanation.

Clean narration

The neural voices read numbers, dates, money and Roman numerals as words (English, French, Spanish and German). They also:

• expand common abbreviations
• skip footnote markers
• fix stretched-out words
• replace symbols the voice can't say

Pauses between sentences and paragraphs are even. The next sentences are prepared while the current one plays, and a long sentence starts playing while it's still being generated, so there are no long gaps.

Apple Intelligence

On devices with Apple Intelligence turned on. Everything runs on the device, and nothing you read is sent anywhere. Without Apple Intelligence, the rest of the app works exactly the same.

Automatic categories

Each new book is placed in one of 18 categories, judged from its table of contents, subjects and description:

• Fiction
• Non-Fiction
• Biography
• Academic
• Reference
• Poetry
• Drama
• Self-Help
• History
• Science
• Business
• Technical
• Children's
• Young Adult
• Romance
• Classics
• Novels
• Magazines

Books that don't fit go in Uncategorized. Without Apple Intelligence, Comma makes a rule-based guess. You can change any book's category, or make your own.

Chapter summaries

For EPUB books. Tap ✨ in the reader for a summary of the current chapter, with numbered key points.

• Long chapters are read in sections, so the whole chapter counts.
• Summaries are saved on the device and open instantly next time.
• Regenerate or Share from the sheet.
• If the book's language isn't supported, the sheet says so.
• Saved summaries stay readable when Apple Intelligence is off.

Clear status

Comma checks again each time you return to it. Onboarding, Settings and the summary sheet tell you whether Apple Intelligence is ready, turned off, still downloading or not supported.

Siri, Shortcuts & widgets

Open books, turn pages and search by voice, from the Shortcuts app, from Spotlight, from a Home Screen widget or from a Control.

Shortcuts actions

Open Book, Search, Navigate Page, Next Page, Previous Page and Continue Reading, ready to use in your own shortcuts and automations.

Home Screen widget

Your recent books with their covers and progress. Small shows one book, Medium three across, Large three rows. Tap a cover to open that book.

Continue Reading control

For Control Center, the Lock Screen or the Action button. It opens the book you read last.

iCloud Sync Pro

Comma Pro is a one-time purchase. It keeps your library the same on every iPhone, iPad and Mac signed in to your iCloud account.

What syncs

• Book files and covers, including covers you changed
• Reading position, which never moves backward
• Highlights, with their notes and colours
• Excerpts
• Categories, including your own
• Reading defaults (and per-book settings when you apply to all books)
• Deletions

Your private iCloud

Data lives in your own iCloud account and counts toward its storage. There's no Comma account or server.

Automatic

Syncs when the app opens, when you return to it, and as soon as another device makes a change. Sync Now in Settings syncs immediately.

Problems surfaced

Settings shows the sync status. A red dot on the Settings button tells you when iCloud is full or you're signed out, and clears when sync works again.

Purchase

Unlock once, with Restore Purchases for a new device. Links to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy are on the purchase screen.

Storage & offloading

See what Comma uses, and free up space without losing anything.

Storage screen

Space used on the device, split into Books, Covers, Database, Backups and Other, with how many books are downloaded (N of M) and the device's free space.

iCloud estimate Pro

How much of your iCloud storage your synced books and covers use.

Neural voice packs

Their total size, with Delete All. The packs are left out of device backups.

Offload Pro

Remove the download for one book, a selection, or Offload All Books from Settings. Details, highlights, excerpts and progress stay.

Settings

The gear button at the top of each tab.

iCloud Sync Pro

Turn sync on or off, see its status, Sync Now, Offload All Books.

Comma Pro

Unlock iCloud Sync and support development.

Global Reader Settings

Reading defaults, and Apply to All Books.

Text-to-Speech

System or Neural voices, language packs, voice choice and previews.

Apple Intelligence

Whether AI features are available, with a shortcut to System Settings.

Storage

The Storage screen.

About Comma

Features, credits, open-source licences (Readium, GRDB, FluidAudio, NeMo text processing, Kyutai's Pocket TTS voices), Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Rate Comma

Opens the App Store review page.

Devices & keyboard

One app for iPhone, iPad and Mac, with layouts that adapt to each screen.

iPhone

Every size, in portrait and landscape. In landscape, text and controls stay clear of the Dynamic Island.

iPad

Adaptive grids and shelves, and resizable windows (Stage Manager, Split View). Two pages in landscape.

Mac

Runs on Macs with Apple silicon, with keyboard and trackpad support.

iPhone Duo

• Close and Back stay clear of the camera and status bar, folded or open, in every rotation.
• Text stays clear of the camera.
• Two pages, one each side of the fold, when open in landscape.
• Sheets are sized for the shorter screen.

One window

Comma uses a single window by design, so Siri, widgets and Read Aloud always reach the right place.

Keyboard in the reader

Design & accessibility

Built with iOS 26's Liquid Glass and a shared paper look across the Shelf, Highlights and Excerpts.

Liquid Glass

Controls use standard system glass, so they follow your Liquid Glass setting (Clear or Tinted) along with Reduce Transparency and Increase Contrast.

Paper design

Covers stand on ledges, highlights sit on paper slips, and passages are set in the Charter serif. There are no oversized title rows; headers stay compact.

Readable for everyone

The OpenDyslexic font, larger sizes, and wide line spacing and margins. The E-ink theme gives a low-glare page.

VoiceOver

Labelled controls throughout. The Excerpts Cover Flow is a single adjustable control: swipe up or down to change book, double-tap to open.

Sheets that fit

Sheets open tall enough for their content on short screens, scroll when needed and keep their buttons in reach.

Privacy

Comma has no account, no tracking and no analytics, and it collects no data.

Your data stays yours

Books, highlights, excerpts and progress stay on your device. With iCloud Sync they're also in your own private iCloud.

On-device intelligence

Categorization, chapter summaries and neural voices run on the device. Nothing you read is sent anywhere.

Optional requests you start

• book descriptions from Open Library and Google Books (More Info)
• cover search on Google Images
• neural voice downloads from Hugging Face
• the Standard Ebooks browser

Privacy manifest

Comma declares every system API it uses for which Apple requires a reason. Tracking is set to none.