I built an iOS app that turns EPUBs into audiobooks
Get picks like this daily. Today's launch numbers, the top launches, AI and tech news, and a daily opportunity pick, straight to your inbox.
Want to reach these readers? Sponsor an issue.
I had a bunch of ebooks with no audiobook version available. So I built an iOS app that converts EPUB files into audiobooks using text-to-speech.Two voice options: - Free on-device voices (processed locally, no server needed) - Natural cloud voices (one-time purchase per book, no subscription)Cloud conversion runs chunk by chunk. You can start listening other chapters generate in the background. Once done, the audiobook lives on your device.No account required. No subscription. You import your own EPUBs and either use device TTS for free or pay per book for the cloud voices.Nothing stored on backend, neither books or audio files.
HN · launched Feb 24, 2026 · 6 upvotes (top 72%) · 0 views
Niche: text-to-speech reading apps · 69 launches, 4 in the last 7 days · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Media & entertainment
- Content generation
- B2C
- AI feature
- Commercial product
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 69 launches in text-to-speech reading apps →
Could you build this?
Yes The app is an iOS wrapper combining standard EPUB parsing libraries with Apple's native AVFoundation/AVSpeechSynthesizer or third-party cloud TTS APIs (like ElevenLabs or OpenAI) alongside standard audio player controls.
Discussion
3 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Speechify
Concerns raised: AI narration loses nuances and quality compared to professional audiobooks, Showcasing books that already have audiobooks available undermines value proposition
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 460 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #438 of 461 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 111 days after the earliest competitor.
- Sandbook · ph · 2026-10-09 · 3 upvotes · similarity 0.66
- All to Audiobook · ph · 2026-11-01 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.65
- SnowReader · ph · 2026-09-09 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.65
- LysnBox · ph · 2026-10-19 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.62
- Heard for iOS: ePub reader with on-device text to speech · hn · 2026-07-15 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.61
- OBook Text To Speech · ph · 2026-09-26 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.60
- Bookora · ph · 2026-10-05 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.60
- Audory: PDF to Audiobook · ph · 2026-11-02 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.60
The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.