Vox Libri 1.16 is now available for iOS!

By Jonathan Chacón, 24 July, 2026

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi everyone,

I’m happy to announce that Vox Libri 1.16 is now available on the App Store.

Vox Libri is an accessible ebook reader designed with VoiceOver users in mind, and it’s available for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.

What’s new in version 1.16

  • 📚 New supported formats: You can now read HTMLZ and RTFD books.
  • 📖 Improved EPUB import with better handling of malformed packages and internationalization issues. We had to give the letter “ñ” a little more love. 🙂
  • ⌚ Improvements to the Apple Watch app, including a better VoiceOver experience.
  • 🔤 New option to control the punctuation verbosity level while reading.
  • 🔄 You can now choose to skip syncing your reading position when opening a book.
  • ⚡ Performance improvements that:
    • Reduce battery usage on iPhone.
    • Make screen freezes less frequent on macOS.
    • Improve reading with the VoiceOver focus.
  • 🎧 Better management of connected headphones.
  • 🖼️ Improved importing of books that contain OCR text in images.
  • ⚙️ New capabilities for the Shortcuts app.
  • 🎵 Beta: Read while listening to your favorite music.

Vox Libri is currently available in:

  • English
  • Spanish
  • French
  • Italian
  • Greek

You can download Vox Libri from the App Store

As always, I’d love to hear your feedback, feature requests, and bug reports. Thank you to everyone who has been testing the app and helping make it better!

Options

Comments

By Pilgrim Pete on Friday, July 24, 2026 - 17:15

Hi Jonathan,

I wanted to follow up on something you'd mentioned previously: the possibility of adding support for other TTS voices beyond the native iOS voices. Is there any update on this? I ask because there's still no system voice I'd choose over Heather for listening to books, and that remains the main reason I continue to use Voice Dream Reader. Being able to use Heather (or other non-native voices) within Vox Libri would make a real difference for me in switching over.

Thanks again for all the continued work on the app.

By Jonathan Chacón on Saturday, July 25, 2026 - 04:24

Hello Pilgrim Pete,

Thank you for your interest.

I’ve been in contact with several iOS voice providers. Some of them have switched to cloud-based voices, while those that still offer installable on-device voices charge prices that are unfortunately well beyond my reach as an indie developer.

In any case, I’m working on adding support for Google Cloud, ElevenLabs, and Microsoft voices so users can convert a book into an audiobook and listen to it as many times as they like. The challenge is that users would need to create an account with ElevenLabs, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure and generate the necessary credentials to use those services. I’m currently looking into ways to reduce the friction involved in that setup process while ensuring that everything remains compliant with the App Store guidelines.

While I gather more information, I’m continuing to improve the different versions of the app and expanding support for other accessibility needs, such as ADD and ADHD.

It’s been a very busy summer for me in terms of work, so version 1.17 will take a little longer to be released. On the positive side, this gives me more time to add new features, fix known issues, and, hopefully, receive responses from the providers of these cloud-based voices that lead to a solution that works well for everyone.

Regards