Athene is a reader for the books you already own.
Bring your books from Files, from Mail, from your computer over Wi‑Fi, from a link, or from anywhere that can share a file, and they go on a shelf that looks like one. EPUB and PDF open as they are; MOBI, AZW3, Word, FB2, TXT and HTML files become books as they arrive. Free classics from Project Gutenberg are a tap away. If you keep your library on a calibre server, Athene browses that shelf too, from + in your Library — on your home network, or from anywhere through your own VPN such as Tailscale.
THE PAGE
Open a book and the app steps back. Just the page, on white, sepia or night paper, or paper in any colour you like, in the typeface and size you read best, including any Google Font. Highlight a passage, add a note, drop a bookmark, and find them all again under Marks. Select a passage in another language to translate it. The shelf itself follows the time of day — Morning, Sunset, Night — or stays on the one you pick.
NOTES YOU CAN DRAW
Type a note in the margin, or sketch in it. On a PDF, mark up the page itself with Apple Pencil.
THE NOTEBOOK
Every highlight, note and drawing from every book you read, in one place, with filters and search. Write what stayed with you after a chapter, a reading session or a whole book, typed or drawn; your reflections stay even if the book leaves your shelf.
LISTEN
Any book, read aloud in a warm, natural voice that runs entirely on your device, and keeps reading with the screen locked. PDFs too: Listen skips the running heads, page numbers and footnotes, reads scanned pages, and describes the pictures and tables as it reaches them. The voice is a one-time download of about 242 MB.
A DICTIONARY
Select a word to see what it means and how to say it. It is built in, and it works offline.
ASK THE PAGE
Tap the owl while you read and ask about what is in front of you. Who is she again? What did that word mean? What just happened? The Owl answers from the pages around where you are — this chapter at most, never the whole book, never your other books — and if the pages do not say, it tells you that instead of guessing.
YOUR MODEL, YOUR CHOICE
On a device with Apple Intelligence, the Owl thinks on the device and nothing you ask is sent anywhere. Or point it at your own Ollama server on your own network. Or bring a key from Claude, OpenRouter or OpenAI. Athene asks before the first question leaves the device, names the address it would send to, and remembers your answer.
ON EVERY DEVICE
Turn on iCloud Sync and your place, highlights, notes, drawings, collections and reading settings follow you between your iPhone and iPad. It goes only to your own private iCloud, and what you wrote is encrypted on your device first. With a calibre server, highlights go both ways: yours to your calibre library, and the ones you make in calibre's own reader to Athene. With KOReader on an e-reader, your books, your place, and your highlights, notes and bookmarks stay in step through a sync server of your own.
PRIVATE BY CONSTRUCTION
Athene has no account, no analytics and no servers of its own. Your books, your notes and your questions stay on your device or go only where you have pointed them. The privacy policy says the same, in plain words.
FREE
Reading is free. No account, no subscription, no limit: the shelf, the reader, Listen, the dictionary, the Owl, the Notebook, iCloud Sync, calibre and KOReader, your highlights and notes. Nothing is locked.
Athene requires iOS 26. The on-device Owl requires Apple Intelligence (iPhone 15 Pro and later, M-series iPad, iPad mini A17 Pro); on other devices the Owl works with your own Ollama server or an API key. Pictures in PDFs are described on iOS 27 with Apple Intelligence.
I want to start off by saying I’d happily pay for Athene if it weren’t free. Atleast add a tip jar! And the simple interface along with its listening feature is what sold me. Still, there are some things I’d like improved. I’d like a way to know which book I’m currently reading. Maybe an indicator of some sort. Thanks for your work on this.
Simple, Functional, Beautiful, Private
Chucho4242
I have caliber-web set up on my Synology NAS and this is now my favorite way of accessing it. The app is incredibly useful. I especially like the way that AI is integrated with privacy in mind. Thank you for making this app. I would pay for it if weren’t free.
Developer Response
Thank you for the kind review! Made my day!
My favorite e-reader!
Crazytrainkid
Love the bookshelf concept and its connection to calibre. I finally have all the train operation manual PDF’s from my calibre server right on my phone. Thank you for making this app!!
Great for Calibre users
linux0117
It was very simple to connect to my existing calibre website. For a long time I used the site as a weblink, this app is so much better!
Developer Response
Thank you, I’m happy you found value in my app. And the app will continue to get even better :)
Calibre folks asked, so:
- You can add a whole folder from Files now, like your calibre library in iCloud Drive or Dropbox. Athene grabs every book in it with calibre's titles, covers and tags
- Your calibre tags show up in Collections, so you can browse your shelf by tag
- Athene finds your "read" column even if it's called Finished, Done, Have read etc
- The calibre setup guide now covers the Read column and running calibre-server on a NAS
Also:
- Press and hold a book and tap About This Book to see what it's about, its series and its tags
- The book you're reading gets a little bookmark on the shelf and a "Continue reading" line under Library (you can turn the line off in Settings)
- Send to KOReader only shows up if you use KOReader sync
- Some EPUBs wouldn't open and said something about a zip archive. That's fixed
Version 3.2.5
The developer, Aditya Sreedhar, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
The developer indicated that this app supports the following accessibility features. Learn More
Supported Features
Dark Interface
Reduced Motion
Information
Seller
Aditya Sreedhar
Size
48.8 MB
Category
Books
Compatibility
Requires iOS 26.0 or later.
iPhone Requires iOS 26.0 or later.
iPad Requires iPadOS 26.0 or later.
Mac Requires macOS 26.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.