What's new
The main changes to the Sandbook app on iPhone, iPad and Mac, newest first, each dated by the day it reached the App Store.
iOS 18.2 or later · iPhone 12 or later · iPad with A14 or M1 · Mac with M1 or later, macOS 15.2 · No account
On iPhone and iPad, press play and lock the screen, and Sandbook keeps reading, with nothing to set up first and no internet needed. The app download is now about 113 MB, less than half its earlier size. In Safari, Chrome and other apps, Save to Sandbook in the share sheet puts an article in Listen Later, a queue at the top of your library that plays one item after another.
Sandbook is now a native Mac app, with your library in a sidebar, the book beside it and a player bar along the bottom, and it keeps reading with the window closed. It needs a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later) and macOS 15.2 or later, and it is the same free App Store listing as the iPhone and iPad app.
The Spanish, French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese and Hindi voices now pronounce words more naturally. Settings has a new Help & FAQ page.
A new book appears in your library right away and is ready to listen to sooner. In a long paragraph, the page now follows the line being read. Numbers and prices sound more natural in Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Hindi.
A new library, reader and player. Leave a book and it keeps playing in a mini player at the bottom of the screen; bookmarks, search inside a book and a sleep timer are new. Passages you have already heard replay instantly, and you can preview a voice before you choose it.
Sandbook now opens Word (.docx) files. In a PDF, the sentence being read is highlighted on the page, and tapping a sentence starts reading from there. A book in Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese or Hindi opens with a voice in its own language.
Spanish, French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese and Hindi voices join English, for 41 voices in all, and the app itself is now in the same six languages. Each word is highlighted as it is spoken. You can scan printed pages with the camera, add web pages, open Markdown and HTML files, and read in a light, sepia or dark theme.
All 41 voices · Scanned pages read aloud · Web pages read aloud
Sandbook is free, has no account and no in-app purchase, and works the moment you open it — even in airplane mode.
iOS 18.2 or later · iPhone 12 or later · iPad with A14 or M1 · Mac with M1 or later, macOS 15.2
