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Comment by diggan | Hacker News Reader

I've been using the Kindle iOS application for reading ebooks for maybe 5-6 years at this point, but last month I archived+de-drm'd all my Kindle books via Calibre and have them stored locally now. Thanks Amazon for forcing me to do this sooner rather than later.

But how do people consume these books on iOS today? I have yet to find any simple and not-get-in-the-way ebook reader for iOS, anyone have any recommendations?

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Have you tried the built-in Books app on iOS? I find it to be a simple book reader that allows for ePub files to be opened from the Files app without having to sync them manually using something like a Mac.

> Have you tried the built-in Books app on iOS?

I have not, I still consider myself a iOS newbie and tend to avoid the Apple software because of their lack of features and usefulness. But I'll give Books a try, didn't realize it let you read local files, thanks a lot for the recommendation! :)

Apple Books is actually pretty good if you have epub. I have used it a fair bit in the past (I now use a Kobo, or physical books primarily). But Apple Books was the best I found on iOS. There were some others that were pretty good but they seem to be unmaintained and/or do some weird things that I didn't particularly like so I went back to Apple Books.

Gave Books a quick try, hardest part was probably how to send files from Linux to iOS, but thanks to ifuse it ended up being pretty easy, by (ab)using Chrome's download directory. Still haven't found a way of importing them into Books automatically, but better than nothing I suppose.

In case others are in the same situation, I ended up doing something like this:

    idevicepair pair
    mkdir ~/iphone
    ifuse --documents com.google.chrome.ios ~/iphone
    cd ~/iphone
    cp /home/user/books/*.epub .
    cd ~
    fusermount -u ~/iphone

Then use Files app on the phone, navigate to the Chrome documents folder and click on the .epub file and after ~5 seconds or so it opens up in Books, and after that it's accessible via Books directly.

I usually just have mine in the Safari downloads folder. Then use Files to open them.

If you’re on Linux, using iCloud to add files there should be easy enough as well. Then I just added them as I needed them. I’m on a Mac though so it’s a bit easier.

Sounds like you found a solution though.

Same. Either open directly from Files, or drag the books(s) you’re currently reading to it so it’s easier to open and find.

Does the de-drm still work? I've tried it through the PC client method and it didn't work.

Don't know, sorry. I did this the 19th of February according to my logs, via the "DeDRM Plugin (v10.0.3)" in Calibre and it worked fine then at least. Seems this is the repository for the plugin: https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools

For downloading the files themselves, I think I ended up using this: https://github.com/treetrum/amazon-kindle-bulk-downloader

Edit: Oh, just saw the warning from the bulk downloader's README now :/

> As of 26th February 2025, Amazon has removed the ability to download backups of your Kindle books. Unfortunately, this means that this tool is no longer functional.

Oh well. While before authors could make money off legit users who wouldn't buy without this ability, now these users will have to skip the middle man and go straight to the pirates.

I think that it might still be possible to connect your Kindle to your computer via USB cable and back up the files that way.

Depends on the method. If you have an old Kindle that doesn't get KFX files like a Kindle 3 that should work. Some older versions of Kindle Desktop can still work but maybe not for all books.

The Kobo (obok) and ADE methods are still fine and easy to do. I wouldn't bother buying new books from Amazon anymore personally.

There are a handful of decent e-reader apps on iOS right now, and unfortunately a few of the best, like KyBook, are dead and no longer being maintained. Of the available options now, the best two IMO are either Apple's own Books app or Yomu EBook Reader. ReadEra is also pretty good.

1. Bluefire Reader: this does epub and PDFs although I’ve rarely used it for the latter. Also handles Adobe DRM which I have personally never used. A couple of issues I’ve noticed with this app: it crashes when you delete a book. Search does not work in some epub files.

2. tiReader: handles more file formats than Bluefire, but is slower and has a strange UI which confuses me even after using it for months. Search works more consistently than in Bluefire.

3. Apple’s own Books app. I don’t like how it mangles epub files rendering them unexportable but it’s great for PDFs

> But how do people consume these books on iOS today?

I don't read much on iOS, but I bought MapleRead[0]. It's quite nice and support OPDS endpoints. Books has a nicer UI, but I dislike the focus on the marketplace (same with Music, I don't like not being able to disable the store when I'm not using it and don't plan to)

[0]: https://www.maplepop.com/web/mr/overview.php

I use one called KyBook atm that i've got no real complaints about. If you can set up calibre-web or something similar you can get local network sync working and it can see your library when you're at home and download the books to the device for when you're away.

I just send the liberated epub back to my kindle address (via calibre) and read them as "documents" in the kindle app for iOS. Unless this has recently changed it works fine, and (critically) my last read location syncs with my Kindle.

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