Deckard & Murderbot now hold their room between them. Whatever you ask, the answer comes from one of the two, in his own voice, and when you come back after a while you walk in on their conversation rather than being greeted by a stranger. New in the library: Sirius, the dog with a human mind from Olaf Stapledon's novel; Al Barker, from Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon; Professor Darrelhyde, from Brigid Brophy's Hackenfeller's Ape; Leo Kall, from Karin Boye's Kallocain; and Professor Georg Manfeldt, from Thea von Harbou's The Rocket to the Moon. Each has a portrait, an introduction and a voice of his own.

Philip K. Dick's bibliography now says which of his books you can meet someone from. Three novels carry a mark on the line — Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, and Vulcan's Hammer — and tapping one opens that character's card rather than sending you straight to the store. William Barris joins Dick's people. His book was in the library all along with nobody attached to it. Also new in the library: Peter Hogarth, from Stanisław Lem's His Master's Voice, who had been listed under the name of a character from a different Lem book entirely; and Maskull, from David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus. Each now has a portrait, an introduction and a voice of his own.

A correction, and a tidy-up. In 1.2.9 the author rooms for H.G. Wells and Arthur C. Clarke displayed Philip K. Dick's name above their own words. They now show their own, as they should have from the start. Also in this release: four book titles had a stray capital letter mid-title, so the same book could appear two ways on one screen. Fixed. And search results are a little more forgiving of names written with accents.

H.G. Wells and Arthur C. Clarke join Philip K. Dick. Each has a room of his own: the man himself, the characters he wrote, and his whole bibliography laid out as a life — with one mark on the line that isn't a book. For Dick that mark is February 1974. For Wells it's 1887, the year a crushed kidney convinced him he was dying — which is why The Time Machine, Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds were all written inside four years by a man settling his accounts. He saw seventy-nine. For Clarke it's 1945, when he published the communications satellite in a four-page paper and never patented it. THREE OF WELLS'S NOVELS ARE HERE IN FULL. The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau and The War of the Worlds open straight from his timeline, in the place on the line where they belong. THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY now has its own card on the library. Five chapters, narrated in Arthur Dent's own voice — and you are the Guide he is dictating to. Also in this release: search now finds names written with accents, the characters hold their own voices far more reliably when asked who they are, and two voices no longer talk over each other when a room opens.

Philip K. Dick now answers about his own life from his own memory, in his own year, rather than from anything written about him since. The two characters on the Deckard & Murderbot card are no longer still portraits — the card said they were already talking, and now they look like it. Murderbot has a living portrait for the first time. A. Square notices when you rejoin a chapter of Flatland you had left in the middle, and says where you both were. Philip K. Dick's bibliography marks the book you last opened and follows you as you scroll.

Four moments of A. Square's Full Immersion now carry film. When the telling says "watch" — the Square crossing Lineland, the Sphere crossing Flatland, the plane letting go, the staircase running past the edge of the frame — there is now something to watch behind the words. Restoring a purchase no longer reports failure to a subscriber whose subscription is in fact active. The Apple Watch companion loads a character's portrait faster and stops re-fetching one it already has.

The yearly plan now shows the saving calculated from the real prices in your region. It previously displayed a fixed figure that was only correct in some countries.

Philip K. Dick has his own room. Talk to the author himself — Santa Ana, 1978, four years into explaining February 1974 and no closer. Ask him about Rick Deckard or Jason Taverner and you get his answer, not a summary. Thirteen of his stories are out of copyright, and they are in here to read, in the order the magazines ran them. The microphone works mid-page: stop anywhere and ask him about the paragraph you are looking at. New: Deckard & Murderbot. Two characters from different books, in one room, disagreeing in front of you. One tests for people. The other would fail the test and would rather be watching television. Neither of them is going to be talked round. His novels are now listed in the order he WROTE them rather than the order they were published, which is a different shape and a truer one.

THE BOOK, NOT JUST THE CHARACTER Five books can now be read inside Leafnode, whole and unabridged: Flatland, The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The War of the Worlds, and A Honeymoon in Space. Read in pages, not one long scroll. Swipe, or tap the edge, to turn. AND THEY KNOW HOW FAR YOU HAVE READ This is the part worth having. Read four chapters of Moreau, then ask Prendick what is on the island. He answers as the man at chapter four, because that is where you both are. Ask him what happens next and he does not know either — he has not been there yet. Memory, never prophecy. Close the book, read on, come back: he will have caught up. ASK THEM ABOUT THE PAGE A microphone in the reader opens a call over the book, without putting it down. They can see the page in front of you, so "what is happening here?" has an answer — and still nothing beyond where you have read. ALSO NEW • Long-press a passage to keep it. Your highlights wait for you in the contents, and can be shared as a card. • The book opens where you left it, down to the paragraph. • Larger type whenever you want it — in the books, not the whole app. • Steadier character voices on longer calls.

Philip K. Dick is here — not a character out of one of his books, but the man himself, at a desk in Santa Ana in 1978. Built from his interviews, his letters and that speech he gave in Metz. Ask him anything. Jason Taverner's story is now one you walk through. Five chapters of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, told in his voice, the world coming apart around you at the pace it comes apart for him. A call now lives on your Lock Screen. Start talking to someone, lock your phone, and the conversation carries on — their face, their name, and how long you have been at it, without unlocking anything. Leave a call sitting and it ends itself rather than running on unattended. The Cacophony reads as talk. Voices take hold of each other's sentences instead of stacking up like a script, and any name inside a passage can be tapped to go and speak with that character alone. Speak With, on your home screen, is yours to choose. Pick who sits on either side of it. A tap opens a call floating over your library instead of the whole app.

Every character's card now opens the same way — same size, same position, whether their introduction runs long or short. "Open in Apple Books" tells the truth. The link is now checked against your own country's store before it's offered, so it opens the actual book instead of a page that isn't available where you are. Where Apple doesn't sell a title, there's simply no button rather than a broken one. A. Square Brain no longer greets you with silence. Step back into the study and he picks up a thread — one of yours, chosen from what the two of you have actually talked about. Every character now has their introduction, portrait and cover. Fifty-one were missing an introduction and four had the wrong cover, including one wearing a study guide's jacket instead of the novel's.

A second Full Immersion: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, told in five chapters by D-503 in his own voice — a new English telling from the Russian. Flatland's immersion is now complete: Pointland, the dream that ends the book, opens Chapter V. A. Square Brain — think with him. He remembers between visits, keeps a question while you're gone, and greets you with what he worked out. His memory is yours to read, strike, or erase; it stays on your device and in your own iCloud. Sharper everywhere: live portraits lead the library, replies stream in as he writes, and dozens of visual refinements.

A. Square's Full Immersion is now the complete five-chapter Flatland arc: • Chapters II–V: the Dream of Lineland, the Stranger's arrival, the ascent into Spaceland, and the Heretic's cell — fully narrated, with the Sphere speaking in his own voice. • Ask to see a moment again during a live voice call and A. Square summons the vision right into the call card. • A chapter guide: tap the roman numeral to jump anywhere in the telling. • Every character now speaks with a permanent, custom-made voice — including bespoke voices for the Spotlight cast. • Voice calls connect faster, replies speak sooner, and the story's narration recovers gracefully after a call. • Pause the telling mid-beat; captions now roll like a teleprompter for live replies too.