CastReader: Read Aloud Books1.2.50 - App Store

Read your own books aloud. CastReader turns PDF and EPUB books, web articles, and documents into speech, with text highlighting that helps you follow every word. Listen while you commute, study, or give your eyes a break.

READ ALOUD AND FOLLOW ALONG
Hear the original text in natural voices while the spoken words are highlighted and the page scrolls automatically. Read a chapter, review study notes, or listen to text recognized from a photo. Keep your place with both sound and text.

UNDERSTAND WITH AI EXPLAIN
For a difficult passage, listen to an AI-generated explanation. CastReader reads the explanation while marking the original with highlights, circled terms, and numbered steps, so you can connect each idea to the source.

BRING YOUR OWN CONTENT
- Camera or photo: recognize text on-device
- Web: open a URL and start listening
- Files: PDF, EPUB, TXT, DOCX, and images
- Paste: turn copied text into speech instantly
- Kindle: connect your Kindle library and continue reading
- Listen to YouTube: share or paste a public video link and hear its public captions with synchronized highlighting

For Listen to YouTube, only public videos with accessible captions are supported. Videos requiring sign-in, age verification, membership, regional access, or private access cannot be read. CastReader does not play, download, or retain YouTube video or audio streams; speech is generated from caption text. CastReader is not affiliated with or endorsed by YouTube.

ON IPHONE AND IPAD
Use the layouts built for iPhone and iPad, in portrait or landscape. The Safari extension reads web pages with highlighting and automatic scrolling. Enable it in Safari settings and allow access to the pages you want to read.

28 LANGUAGES IN THE INTERNATIONAL VERSION
Read and listen in English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Hindi, Dutch, Korean, Arabic, Russian, Polish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Filipino, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malay, Romanian, Turkish, and Vietnamese. The interface is localized in all 28 languages. Voice choices and voice cloning support vary by language.

FREE AND CASTREADER PRO

Use CastReader free every day. Choose a monthly or annual Pro subscription for unlimited reading with standard voices, unlimited AI explanations, premium voice access, and playback speeds up to 3x. Cloned voices require Pro and use a separate allowance: 120 minutes per monthly allowance period. Optional 120-minute top-up packs add cloned-voice time without extending Pro. Local prices, billing periods, and renewal terms are shown in App Store before purchase.

Voice and feature availability may vary by region.

Dark mode and background playback are supported. Photo text recognition uses Apple’s on-device OCR; accuracy varies with the language and image quality. Photos are not uploaded for text recognition. Your local reading history stays on your device. Connected services retain their own account and reading data under their respective policies.

Support for iPhone Duo: unfold for a roomier reading view, then fold back while keeping your place. Read Aloud and AI Explain adapt to the available space.

EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Version History Follow your own text as it is read aloud. Complete 30 seconds on 7 days, Nov 9–22. Existing listening limits apply.

You can now open the annual Pro plan directly from its App Store promotion and confirm your purchase in the app. 1.2.50 1d ago Updated our localized App Store information to explain Read Aloud, supported file formats, and AI Explain more clearly.

Support for iPhone Duo: unfold for a roomier reading view, then fold back while keeping your place. Read Aloud and AI Explain adapt to the available space. 1.2.49 2d ago The interface and reading now support 28 languages. Voice lists follow your app language, and playback voice selection follows the language being read. Improved language switching, localized labels and cloned-voice balance display on iPhone and iPad. 1.2.48 4d ago Pro members can now purchase additional cloned-voice minutes at any time. This update also improves Kindle page matching, keeps sentences together across page turns, and fixes playback pauses when turning pages or changing voices.

Improved continuous reading and explanations for Kindle, WeRead and Kobo on iPhone and iPad. Fixed long waits at page and chapter transitions, playback stopping after page turns, and annotations spanning both columns on iPad. Chinese cloned voices now support synchronized text timing across pages. 1.2.47 Oct 4 Safari reading is now available on iPhone and iPad. Enable the CastReader extension in Safari settings to listen directly on web pages, with synchronized highlighting and automatic scrolling. Pause, resume, change voices and adjust playback speed without leaving the page. This update also improves highlight visibility and cleanup on pages with links, mixed formatting and collapsed sections. 1.2.46 Sep 27 Improved Pro subscription status and synchronization across devices. Fixed cases where an expired or unsuccessful subscription could leave an outdated Pro status, and improved status refresh on unstable connections. 1.2.45 Sep 25 Fixed Kindle AI explanations stopping after an automatic page turn or replaying the previous page. Improved long-session playback recovery and made iPhone tab switching smoother with native animations. 1.2.44 Sep 23 CastReader now supports iPad alongside iPhone in the same app.
Enjoy layouts designed for the larger screen, portrait and landscape reading, and resizable windows.
Bookshelves, Read Aloud, AI explanations, imports and playback controls adapt as you rotate or resize. Reading position, highlights and annotations stay in sync. 1.2.43 Sep 22 Keep listening with smoother voice changes and page transitions.
Read complete explanation captions without cut-off sentences.
Enjoy improved EPUB contents and illustrations, plus original PDF layouts with more reliable scanned-page reading. 1.2.42 Sep 20 Improved reading playback with cloned voices, including recovery after turning pages.
Faster voice switching and smoother transitions between audio segments.
Improved audio buffering and playback stability. 1.2.41 Sep 18 • Discover voices more easily with themed collections, recommendations and search. Browse regular and curated voices separately, with clear monthly allowance details for cloned voices.
• Use your chosen voice consistently in Read Aloud and AI Explain. Improved preview responsiveness, voice switching and quota status reliability.
• Navigate EPUB chapters with the table of contents.
• A smoother start after connecting your library, plus more reliable subscription purchase syncing. 1.2.40 Sep 15 • Save an entire Kindle book for offline reading from the player's More menu. Find saved books and covers in Settings > Offline Books.
• Listen offline with system voices, adjustable speed, reading highlights, and a mini player that keeps your place.
• Improved Chinese and Japanese offline reading with sentence-based highlighting, and localized the offline download flow.
• Fixed AO3 reading recovery after site notices and chapter changes. 1.2.39 Sep 14 • Added Sleep Timer: pause listening after a chosen duration or at a specific time, while keeping your place.
• Find reading settings in the player's More menu, including Kindle font-size controls.
• Improved WeRead startup from cover pages and language detection on short Chinese pages.
• Localized the new timer and reading settings across all supported interface languages. 1.2.38 Sep 13 • More reliable saved listening positions and easier access to your library from Continue Listening.
• Fixed Kindle playback after manual page turns and reading-position choices.
• Faster reopening of previously parsed PDF and EPUB files.
• Improved Kindle preloading, word highlighting, and reader layout stability. 1.2.37 Sep 10 • Improved speech request handling and recovery from connection errors.
• Improved Kindle page preloading and continuous reading between pages.
• More accurate word highlighting for compound words in Kindle books. 1.2.36 Sep 8 • New Kindle reading settings: adjust font size and choose whether to skip clearly identified superscript footnote reference numbers.
• Improved continuous reading, pause and resume, and recovery after temporary audio errors.
• Improved Kindle page fitting, font size persistence, and the reading layout when rotating your device or expanding the player.
• View and copy the app version in Settings. 1.2.35 Sep 8 • Improved Kobo and Google Play Books sign-in, account connection, and library syncing, including fixes for missing books in larger libraries.
• Clearer loading and retry messages, with fixes for incorrect book counts during loading and some reader opening issues.
• More reliable read-aloud playback and Kindle page transitions, with better recovery from temporary network errors.
• Improved service connections in mainland China and reliability when creating voices. 1.2.34 Sep 6 • In supported regions, you can now create a voice in three ways: record yourself, invite a friend, or upload an audio file.
• For uploaded audio, CastReader automatically selects a clear clip. After confirming permission, you can preview it or create the voice right away.
• Voices created through invitations are organized separately, and repeated sign-in prompts when using a created voice have been fixed. 1.2.33 Sep 3 • In supported regions, invite a friend with one link to record, preview, and send you their voice.
• Shared voices appear in Created, where you can preview, rename, select, and use them for Read Aloud and Explain while authorization remains active.
• Voice creation, playback, and recovery from temporary service errors are now more reliable. 1.2.32 Sep 1 • Choose a recording language, then read the optional sample or speak naturally in your own words.
• Rename cloned voices and recognize them by distinct, consistent avatars throughout the app.
• Voice creation and syncing are more reliable, and temporary failures can be retried with the same recording. 1.2.31 Aug 30 • Create a personal cloned voice with a guided press-and-hold recording, then use it across supported reading languages.
• A new live recording waveform provides clearer feedback, with more reliable creation previews and preview restoration.
• Improved cloned-voice playback stability for long text, retries, and quota handling. 1.2.30 Aug 28 • Import PDFs, EPUBs, documents, and text files directly from Google Drive.
• A clearer path from connecting your library to starting your first listen.
• Removed the unfinished Safari extension to prevent unsupported browser flows, plus reliability improvements. 1.2.29 Aug 27 • A clearer path from connecting a supported library to starting your first listen.
• Improved onboarding and Pro guidance so the next step is easier to understand.
• Removed the unfinished Safari extension to prevent unsupported browser flows, plus reliability fixes. 1.2.28 Aug 24 • Fixed Kindle libraries stopping after the first lazy-loaded batch; sync now waits for the full shelf.
• Improved Kindle page turning and reading-position recovery when navigation controls hide.
• AI Explain now respects rate limits instead of repeatedly retrying, reducing cascading failures. 1.2.27 Aug 21 What's new:
• WeRead shelf sync is more reliable — large shelves and shelves with audio/video items no longer fail
• Imported documents now resume where you left off
• Smoother Explain: seamless section transitions and faster recovery from network hiccups
• Stability improvements 1.2.26 Aug 19