Lector — your documents, read aloud

Something worth hearing, while your hands are busy

Import a PDF, an EPUB, a Word document, or an article from Safari, press play, and Lector reads it to you — while you work, while you drive, while you walk the dog, while dinner cooks. The sentence being spoken stays highlighted so you never lose your place, and playback continues in the background with the Dynamic Island keeping the time remaining in view.

Lector reading Moby-Dick aloud with the current passage highlighted — Follow along, sentence by sentence

The document library with reading progress on each item — Your library remembers your place

The voice list grouped by language with favorites pinned at the top — Favorite the voices you actually use

The chapter navigator listing the chapters of a book — Jump straight to a chapter

Exporting a document to an M4A audio file — Export any document as audio

Why “Lector”

Lector is Latin for reader, from legere, to read. The word has been doing honest work for two thousand years, and it has always meant the same thing: one person reads aloud so that others can attend to what they are doing.

In the church

The lector is the one appointed to read the Scripture lessons aloud in the service — an office old enough to be counted among the minor orders of the ancient church. The congregation hears the Word while the lector carries the text.

In the refectory

Monastic communities ate their meals in silence while a lector read from Scripture or the fathers. The meal fed the body; the reading fed everything else.

In the cigar factory

In the cigar factories of Cuba, and later of Key West and Tampa, the rollers pooled their own money to hire a lector, who sat on a raised platform and read newspapers and novels aloud over the workbenches. Skilled hands, occupied ears.

This app takes the old office and puts it in your pocket. The text is yours; the lector is your iPhone.

What it does

Reads your formatsPDF, EPUB, Word (.docx), RTF, Markdown, and plain text — plus articles shared from Safari and text you type or paste.

Finds the chaptersA PDF’s table of contents becomes real chapters. A navigator jumps anywhere in the book.

Highlights as it speaksThe current sentence stays marked and the page scrolls itself, so eyes can drop in and out.

Exports audioRender any document — or a single chapter — to an M4A file for the car, the podcast app, or the archive.

Keeps playingBackground playback with Dynamic Island and Live Activity controls. Lock the phone; the reading continues.

Listens to SiriSix Shortcuts actions — play, pause, resume, stop, next, previous — for hands-free control and automation.

Respects the hourA sleep timer winds the reading down; speed control from deliberate to brisk.

Looks how you likeLight, dark, or follow the system — and the layout honors large Dynamic Type throughout.

The Dynamic Island showing the document being read and fifteen minutes remaining

About the voices

Lector speaks with Apple’s own voices, generated entirely on the device. Every voice installed on your iPhone appears in the app, grouped by language, with your favorites pinned to the top.

One recommendation before you settle in: download an Enhanced or Premium voice. The standard voices are serviceable, but the higher tiers are markedly closer to a human reader — fuller, smoother, better paced — and they are free downloads. On your iPhone, open Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Voices, choose a language, and look for the names marked Enhanced or Premium. Once downloaded, the voice appears in Lector automatically.

SamanthaEnglish (US)

DanielEnglish (UK)

KarenEnglish (Australia)

MoiraEnglish (Ireland)

TessaEnglish (South Africa)

AnnaGerman

These ten-second samples are the standard tier, so you are hearing the floor, not the ceiling. The Enhanced and Premium downloads of these same voices are a clear step up — which is rather the point of recommending them.

One price, once

Everything in Lector is free to use. The free library holds three imported documents at a time — delete one and the slot opens again — and typed text and shared articles never count against it. A single purchase removes the cap for good.

Free

every feature included

All formats, voices, chapters, export, Siri, Dynamic Island
Library of 3 imported documents
Typed text and shared articles — unlimited, always

Lector Unlimited

$9.99

one time — not per year, not per month

Import as many documents as you like
No subscription, no account, no renewal
Yours for keeps, across your devices

I was tired of apps that offered a three-day trial and then wanted a hundred and twenty dollars a year. So Lector is built the other way around: the free version is the full app, not a demonstration of one, and the only thing money buys is a bigger bookshelf. If the app earns a place in your day, ten dollars — once — removes the cap. That is the entire business model.

— Albert, the developer

The beta is coming to TestFlight

Lector is headed into beta through Apple’s TestFlight. When Apple approves external testing, a public link will appear right here — tap it on your iPhone and the beta installs, no sign-up and no waiting list. Beta builds are free, including the unlimited library.

Public TestFlight link coming here shortly

Private by architecture

Lector processes everything on the device. This is not a policy that could change with an update to the terms; there is simply no server to send anything to.

No accountNothing to sign up for, nothing to remember, nothing to breach.

No analyticsNo tracking, no advertising identifiers, no third-party SDKs phoning home.

Your documents stay yoursFiles are read and spoken on the phone. They are never uploaded anywhere.

Purchases through AppleThe one purchase is handled by the App Store. Lector never sees a payment detail.

The full policy is one page: the Lector privacy policy.