The Short Version
VocaRead 3.0 is out on the App Store. It touches almost every part of the app: how you find your books, where a book starts, how it sounds, and where you can listen. If you only read one paragraph: your library is faster to browse, books now start at the real first chapter, a new reading engine is available in beta for 30+ languages, and the player finally feels at home on iPad.
A New Library View
The library gains a list view next to the classic grid. It shows more books per screen, with progress at a glance, and it remembers your choice. Unread books now come before finished ones, so what you should listen to next is always near the top. Combined with the filter chips (In progress, Unread, Read, Favorites, Listen Next) and sorting by title, author, date added, last read, or progress, a library of two hundred books stops feeling like a pile. We wrote a full guide to organizing your library.
Books Start Where They Really Start
Most ebooks open with a copyright page, a table of contents, a dedication, sometimes a preface. VocaRead 3.0 now detects introductions and prologues in most books, so playback begins at the first line that actually matters. You can still jump back to the front matter from the chapter list — it just isn't the default anymore.
Bigger EPUBs
The import limit for EPUB files has been raised to 35 MB. Illustrated editions, technical books with diagrams, and omnibus collections now import without needing to be split first.
A New Reading Engine (Beta)
This is the change we're most excited about. VocaRead 3.0 ships a new on-device reading engine, in beta, covering more than 30 languages. It's opt-in: go to Settings › Voices and turn on "Try the new reading engine". Your current voices and settings stay exactly as they are, and you can switch back at any time. Read more in our walkthrough of the new engine.
A Player Built for iPad
On iPad, the player is now laid out for the larger screen instead of being a stretched phone view: text and controls sit where your eyes and thumbs expect them, in both orientations. Progress still syncs through iCloud, so you can move between iPhone and iPad mid-chapter. Details in VocaRead on iPad.
CarPlay, Steadier
Resuming a book from the car and picking a voice from the CarPlay screen are both more reliable. If you listen while driving, this guide covers the whole CarPlay setup.
Sound and Speed
Under the hood, audio output is clearer and playback is steadier, especially on long sessions. Reading speed is now canonical across engines: 1.2× means 1.2× whichever voice you pick, which also makes the "time remaining" estimate trustworthy.
And Since 2.5
If you skipped a couple of versions, you also gained: much better PDF import for complex and scanned documents (on-device OCR), voice previews during onboarding and in Settings, sharing excerpts straight from the player, Siri and Shortcuts support with a home-screen widget (how to set them up), web-page import and OPDS catalogs, Word/Markdown/RTF support, collections, editable metadata, and the Listen Next queue.
VocaRead 3.0 is a free update. New here? Download VocaRead — every book includes 90 minutes of free listening, and unlocking everything is a single one-time purchase.