Changelog

New

• Share Extension — share any URL from Safari or other apps directly to Narratorr, and it opens in the built-in browser
• Full VoiceOver support — every button, control, and interactive element across the entire app now has descriptive labels, hints, and traits for screen reader users
• Reduce Motion support — all decorative animations respect the system Reduce Motion setting, switching to instant transitions
• Dynamic Type for UI chrome — toolbar icons, play buttons, page indicators, close buttons, and nav controls all scale with your preferred text size
• Color-only state indicators now also announce "selected" via VoiceOver — theme tiles, timer options, voice selections, and book selection all work without relying on color alone

Improved

• Auto-advance icon now only shows active when a next chapter is actually detected or a custom selector is trained — no more false positives
• Checkmarks in language and voice selection sheets moved to the left for easier scanning

New

• Free device voices — use your iPhone's built-in text-to-speech for unlimited, offline listening at no cost
• Cloud / Device voice engine selector — switch between premium AI voices and free device voices with a single tap in speech settings
• Language picker for both cloud and device voices — choose a language first, then browse voices for that language
• Multi-language support for device voices — access every voice installed on your iPhone across dozens of languages
• "Download More Voices" shortcut — jump straight to iOS Accessibility settings to grab enhanced and premium quality voices for free

Improved

• Redesigned speech settings sheet — cleaner card-based layout for switching between Cloud and Device voice engines
• CarPlay playback performance — reduced latency during paragraph transitions for smoother listening while driving
• Device voice speed tuned to feel natural at 1x — no longer sounds rushed at normal speed
• Novelty and joke voices (Jester, Bells, etc.) filtered out of the device voice picker
• Updated onboarding screenshots to showcase the new voice engine switcher
• Minimum iOS version lowered to iOS 18 — supports more devices

Fixed

• Audio session setup no longer retries on every paragraph — resolves error -50 spam in logs
• Fixed a Swift concurrency warning in device TTS audio buffer handling

New

• Book series — group multiple books into a single series card in your library. Long-press to multi-select books, then tap "Group" to create a series
• Series detail view — tap a series to see all books in order, reorder by dragging, add or remove books, and rename the series
• "Add to Series" context menu on any standalone book — quickly add books to an existing series or create a new one

Improved

• Library simplified to list-only view for a cleaner, more consistent layout
• Series with 1 or fewer books auto-dissolve — remaining books return to standalone automatically
• Orphan cleanup now removes stale book references from series on app startup

New

• Mini player — dismiss the reader and keep listening. A Spotify-style bar appears so you can browse your library or the web while TTS plays in the background
• Tap the mini player to reopen the reader exactly where you left off — position, chapter, and highlight all restored
• Detached chapter auto-advance — books automatically transition to the next chapter even without the reader open

Improved

• Reading progress saves continuously during background playback — your position stays current even without the reader open
• Opening a different book or web link automatically stops any active background session cleanly

Fixed

• Switching between book and web readers no longer leaves stale session data — mini player correctly shows what's actually playing
• Chapter auto-advance no longer skips chapters or fails to resume playback after transitioning

Improved

• Auto-advance button now opens settings instead of just toggling — easier to train sites and check next-chapter status
• Cleaner web reader header — removed the truncated article title for more breathing room
• Redesigned empty bookmarks page with a cleaner, illustrated style matching the library
• CarPlay playback is snappier — reduced gap between paragraphs during TTS
• Now Playing artwork loads off the main thread — no more UI hitches when cover images update on the lock screen
• Library edit-mode jiggle animation rewritten — uses native SwiftUI animation instead of per-card timers, smoother at 60fps even with 50+ books
• EPUB entity decoding 15x faster — single-pass regex replaces 15 sequential string scans
• Chapter position lookups are now O(1) instead of O(chapters) — faster paragraph navigation in long books
• Network timeout added for link preview fetches — no more hanging requests when saving web links

Fixed

• Tab bar sometimes required multiple taps to switch between Library and Browse — fixed a gesture conflict that was swallowing taps
• Duplicate cover image loads for the same book no longer pile up — image cache now deduplicates concurrent requests
• Browser training mode click listener is now properly removed on exit — no more orphaned event handlers
• WKWebView is now fully cleaned up on dismiss — stops loading and releases delegates to prevent memory leaks
• TTS prefetch cleanup now runs before new tasks are added, preventing unbounded task growth

New

• Reading streaks are now tracked server-side — your streak persists across devices and reinstalls
• Automatic orphan cleanup on app startup — stale cover images, metadata, and cached chapter images from deleted books are cleaned up automatically

Improved

• Image cache rewritten with O(1) LRU eviction — faster cover loading and lower memory usage in large libraries
• Cover images now load on a background thread — smoother scrolling through the library
• Sleeker browser progress bar with gradient and glow effect
• TTS buffer now responds to memory pressure warnings — automatically clears prefetched audio when the system is low on memory
• Word highlight animation uses lighter CATransaction instead of UIView.animate — less overhead at 20 updates/sec
• 50 MB sanity cap on TTS audio responses to prevent runaway memory usage
• Removed debug logging from release builds for cleaner performance

Fixed

• Deleting an EPUB no longer leaves its chapter images on disk — could add up to hundreds of MB over time
• Deleting a web article now removes its cached cover image
• Now Playing remote command targets are properly removed before re-registration — prevents duplicate handlers stacking up
• Fixed a potential crash from a force-unwrap in the web reader cache path

New

• Safari-style gestures in the browser — swipe from the left edge to go back, right edge to go forward, pull down to refresh

Improved

• Word highlight on Light and Focus themes now uses a matching blue/purple tint instead of yellow
• Performance improvements — cached text layout objects, cleaned up stale callbacks, and capped background prefetch tasks to reduce lag after extended use
• Reading stats sheet is more compact and fits better on all screen sizes

Fixed

• Sleep timer now reliably stops TTS after the set time when your phone screen is off — previously the timer silently failed in background mode
• Ghost TTS highlight no longer appears at the start of a new chapter during chapter transitions
• Hyphenated words that wrap across lines no longer highlight the entire next line
• Royal Road titles with line breaks no longer merge into a single line — <br> tags are now preserved
• Multi-line title blocks no longer get merged into the first body paragraph

New

• Word-by-word highlighting during TTS playback — each word lights up as it's spoken with a smooth animated highlight
• Theme-aware highlight colors — the word highlight adapts to each reading theme for a comfortable look
• Google, Facebook, and Patreon sign-in now works in the built-in browser — OAuth popups and redirects are handled properly
• Terms of Use (EULA) link added to app settings

Improved

• Now Playing widget shows book title and content type instead of generic "Narratorr" label, with cached artwork for smoother updates
• Library sort preference now persists across app launches
• Reading stats page shows a loading indicator while listening time is calculated

Fixed

• Tapping login links in the browser no longer opens external apps — stays in-app so OAuth flows complete correctly
• Web auto-advance no longer loops on the same page when the "next" link points back to the current page
• Fixed noticeable delay between paragraphs during CarPlay TTS playback
• Fixed deprecation warnings for iOS 26 compatibility

New

• EPUB images now display inline in the reader — chapter illustrations, separators, and diagrams all render properly
• Bold and italic formatting preserved in both EPUBs and web articles — no more plain text walls
• Multi-file import — select and import multiple books at once from the file picker

Improved

• Smart image sizing — small decorative images stay small, content images scale properly without pixelation
• TTS now correctly skips image-only paragraphs and auto-advances past image-only chapters
• Tidied up the library page layout

Fixed

• Italic sentences in web articles no longer merge into the next paragraph
• EPUB images that were showing as broken symbols now render correctly

New

• 6 reader themes — Original, Focus, Paper, Calm, Quiet, and a new true-black AMOLED theme
• Automatic theme switching — reader follows your system light/dark mode by default
• Save web articles to your library directly from the reader via the new menu
• Reading progress is now saved for web articles — pick up right where you left off

Improved

• Safari-style loading bar in the browser
• Redesigned Read button with a cleaner, system-matching material style
• Tighter, more polished header layout in both the book and web readers

Fixed

• Web novel paragraphs no longer merge into a single block — improved support for bracket dialogue, ellipsis, CJK punctuation, and more
• Changing TTS voice or speed while paused now correctly applies when you resume

Fixed

• Italic, bold, and other formatted text on web articles no longer splits into separate paragraphs
• "Chapter Text" boilerplate header from AO3 is now automatically removed
• Non-Latin characters (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Arabic, etc.) are stripped from TTS — not yet supported by the voice engine

New

• Sleep timer is now more accurate and won't drift over long sessions

Fixed

• Fixed a bug where TTS could skip or refuse to play paragraphs after stopping and restarting
• Smarter retry logic for TTS — no more failed requests piling up at the same time
• Sleep timer countdown display stays in sync with the actual timer
• Smaller, cleaner loading animations when opening books
• General performance and stability improvements

New

• Import from Google Drive, Dropbox, and other cloud services — access your files directly from cloud storage

Fixed

• Next chapter autoplay now works when your phone is locked
• Fixed sentences/paragraphs randomly repeating during playback
• Next chapter navigation on single-page articles works properly now

New

• Auto-detect next page/chapter links on web articles — automatically transitions to the next page when autoplay is on
• Teach the system where the "next" button is on any site with a single tap — it learns and remembers
• Continuous reading for webnovels and fanfics — works just like imported books now

Launch

• First public beta available on TestFlight
• Unlimited usage for all beta testers
• Import EPUBs, PDFs, TXT files and web articles
• 20+ natural AI voices with adjustable speed
• 4 reader themes (Light, Sepia, Dark, Black)
• Built-in browser for fanfics, webnovels, and blog posts
• Sleep timer, bookmarks, and lock screen controls

• narratorr.app is live — app details, screenshots, pricing, privacy policy, and support