An iPad is a versatile device that can help you get closer to the art that you really care about. Watching movies, TV shows, and YouTube videos feels great on the display, compared to your smaller smartphone, and even more so if you connect an audio device to it. Artists love drawing on the iPad, bringing their imagination to life, and using the Apple Pencil to craft unique pieces. If you buy Apple’s Magic Keyboard or a similar third-party device you can transform your iPad into a bona fide laptop replacement too.
For readers who may be tired of finding space for physical books and comics, one thing to know about the iPad is that it can also function as an e-reader. By downloading apps, you can read all the eBooks, comics, and manga that you desire — meaning that a Kindle may not be worth buying if you have an iPad.
There are many apps that transform your iPad into a window to view your favorite reading material. We’ve listed twelve here that should help you get lost in everything from classic novels, to fantastical superhero comics, and gripping shonen manga.
Apple Books
Your iPad comes with Apple Books pre-installed, and the user interface is beautiful, with a clean aesthetic — channeling Apple’s design ethos that makes all of their software offerings so pleasing to use. You can switch between an infinite scroll or the traditional page flip, use Night Mode whenever required, change page layouts, switch between themes, select a font type you prefer, and even change other minute things like background colors and line spacing. The app lets you set up goals and track your reading streak, which is a great way to encourage a daily reading habit.
One of the best parts of Apple Books is its support for third-party PDFs and EPUBs, meaning that eBooks you’ve downloaded from other third-partyar book, the app lets you read the first few pages as a sample. Plus, with Family Sharing, up to five members of a household can access the books you’ve bought
It doesn’t rely on a subscription, and there are plenty of books for free, but sometimes those that cost are priced higher than on competitor storefronts, which isn’t ideal. Still, some people don’t mind paying a premium for a better reading experience, and you can even pre-order books if you’re excited for your favorite author to stimulate your imagination once again.
Amazon Kindle
There’s a reason why the Kindle has become the most popular e-reader on the market by a country mile. So, it goes without saying that Amazon has also done its part to make the Kindle app great for reading books too, to the point where there are some cool Kindle app features you won’t find on an actual Kindle. The sheer volume of content is one of the biggest reasons why using the Kindle app is so convenient. From major novels to hidden gems written by lesser-known authors, chances are that any book that’s caught your eye is available on the Kindle platform.
Kindle Unlimited is also worth highlighting, with this value-for-money subscription service letting you access a gigantic library — which exceeds the 5 million books mark. For $11.99 a month plus taxes, you can check out a large selection of eBooks, comics, and manga. You can borrow 20 books at once
Customizability is also a huge perk of the Amazon Kindle. You can change font type and size, along with text spacing and reading mode. Text can also be annotated and highlighted as per your convenience. The Kindle app also gauges your reading speed and lets you know how much time is left before you reach the end of a book or chapter. If you want to gamify the act of reading, you can check out Reading Challenges in the Kindle app. Any book you read counts towards your reading streak, and you can earn achievements that encourage a healthy reading habit.
Shonen Jump Manga & Comics
Any manga fan worth their salt is familiar with Shonen Jump. This massive company is responsible for publishing some of the most popular manga of all time. Think of any popular anime that you’ve seen — from classics like “Dragon Ball,” “Naruto,” “Death Note,” and “Bleach,” to modern epics like “One Piece,” “My Hero Academia,” “Demon Slayer,” and “Jujutsu Kaisen,” there’s no shortage of amazing IPs that Shonen Jump is responsible for bringing to life.
Suffice it to say, their official app is well worth subscribing to for manga fans who want to read some of the best manga on their device. The latest chapters of your favorite manga are free, and you can enjoy their entire library for just $2.99 a month. There was a time when this subscription was still limiting users to reading just a hundred chapters a day, but even this limitation was removed to let manga fanatics binge-read entire series without any issues.
The user experience is excellent on this app. People with a Shonen Jump account can sync their reading progress across multiple devices, and the manga reader includes features like landscape mode that do justice to the beautiful double-page spreads that mangaka love to pour their heart and soul into. If you’re taking a flight or anticipate a situation where you won’t enjoy access to the internet for a while, you can download manga chapters to read them offline. Even when it comes to screenshots — something that most comic and manga-reading apps block for understandable reasons — the Shonen Jump app doesn’t restrict this act, letting you capture some breathtaking manga panels to use as a wallpaper or show off to your friends.
Google Play Books & Audiobooks
Whether you want to read eBooks or comics, Google Play Books & Audiobooks is an essential app every avid reader needs on their iPad. The collection of this app is quite impressive, to the point where you can find both modern and classic versions of legendary books like “The Iliad.” The digital library you’ll fill up on this app can be organized as per your behest, letting you choose either regular categories like genre and authors or custom ones based on the theme that you prefer. Customization features are also welcome, letting you alter the font type, text size, brightness, and background color, to name a few. You can even add bookmarks, highlights, and notes to the eBook in question for further reference, much like the Kindle app. Books can be browsed and bought from the in-app store, with some of them providing a sample to help you make an informed purchase.
For comics, the Google Play app is also quite useful. The options to change page layout mean that double-page spreads can be enjoyed precisely how the artist intended. However, a unique feature of the comic-reading on this app is the AI-powered Bubble Zoom, which checks any page for dialogue bubbles and makes them large and legible.
Tachimanga
For the longest time, Tachiyomi was the gold standard when people sought out an open-source reading app that would let them enjoy all their favorite manga with ease. Unfortunately, legal issues led to the app shutting down a few years ago. While this was a blow for manga fans, Tachiyomi spawned several spiritual successors that have carried forward its work, with Tachimanga being a notable mention in this regard. Even the logos look similar, and this stellar manga reader lets users browse a bunch of sources to find the manga they’re seeking out. In fact, this app isn’t limited to manga alone — Tachimanga is great for comics and manhwa as well.
There are some minor annoyances with this app — features like offline backups and a double-page layout are locked behind a paywall, but the free package is so solid that you may not even feel the need to drop a cent on this app. A clean UI and a massive collection of manga — courtesy of numerous online repositories that will usually have the manga you’re seeking out — make Tachimanga an excellent app for manga readers.
Amazon has captured such a massive e-reader market with Kindle that competing against it may seem like a fool’s errand, but Kobo has stepped up to the plate with e-readers that are great in their own right, with the only drawback being the lack of an ecosystem as widespread as the Kindle’s. The Kobo app lets you use almost all the features of their e-readers to turn your iPad into a reading juggernaut.
There are two ways to read books on the Kobo app. The Kobo Store has a ton of books that you can fill your library with. Alternatively, you can check out the Kobo Plus subscription, which provides a two-week free trial before taking a minor $0.99 subscription fee for the first month. This eventually goes up to $7.99 per month for Kobo Plus Read or $9.99 per month for Kobo Plus Read & Listen. For a pass that lets you access more than 2 million books, this is a pretty great deal!
Any quality-of-life feature that you’d expect from a modern e-reading program is present in the Kobo app. It includes custom themes, a Night Mode setting, and the ability to leave bookmarks, notes, and annotations. These are saved and synced across all devices you’re signed in to. Oh, and if you want to check out the app first before deciding whether making an account is worthwhile, Guest Mode will give you a feel for what Kobo has to offer.
DC Universe Infinite
While DC’s attempts at a cinematic universe have been middling at best, most fans prefer to focus on the comics side of things, where the mature, complex storytelling has been largely praised across the board. Vertigo Comics also falls under the umbrella, with iconic comics like “Preacher,” “Y: The Last Man,” “Fables,” “Sandman,” and “Hellblazer” bolstering the DC Universe Infinite app’s incredible lineup. Of course, you can always read your favorite “Superman,” “Batman,” and “Wonder Woman” tales too.
The app has three subscription tiers. The standard monthly and annual plans boast the same benefits — a library of more than 27,000 comics, along with access to the latest releases six months after their print launch. However, if this wait is too long, you can upgrade to the Ultra tier. It’s pretty pricey and only accepts an annual payment, but you can read new releases just 30 days after their release. It also boasts unrestricted access to DC’s extended library, such as comics from Vertigo and Black Label, bumping up the total library count to over 32,000. You may have to deal with a few app glitches, UX design that can seem a bit outdated, and a search function that will make Reddit look competent, but people who love DC’s IPs won’t mind trudging through these minor issues to appreciate the big picture.
Libby
While the magic of going to a physical library and borrowing books may be dying out, it’s not like this experience can’t be feasible if moved to a digital front. This is what Libby aims to achieve, syncing with your local public library to show you their catalogue that you can borrow from and read on your iPad instantly. It’s one of the most novel ways — no pun intended — to try and add a digital spin on an age-old practice, and the masses agree that Libby has largely been successful in this venture.
The best part about Libby is that this app lets you read books for free. As long as your local library has a strong collection of books, you should have no problem finding any reading material that catches your eye. It doesn’t place restrictions on the number of library cards you can register either, letting you expand your selection to cover an even greater range of reading content. Finally, if you can’t find a book you’re seeking out even after browsing a few catalogues, you can suggest for a library to buy a book and keep it in stock.
Panels
People seeking out a great comic reader for their iPad will love Panels. In terms of reading comic books, there aren’t many apps that do it better. However, numerous one-time payments or an ongoing subscription fee are required to enjoy all of Panels’ features. The free plan may be decent, with support for third-party comics of almost every possible format, cross-platform sync, and library organization tools, but most people find it slightly limiting after a while.
However, it’s the suite of features you unlock with a paid plan that makes Panels such a beloved DRM-free comic reader. You can change the way you scroll or flip through pages, safeguard your privacy with ID locks and incognito mode, access a bunch of themes, and check out numerous page filters to see if they’re up your alley. It’s a great app that keeps getting better with each version, which is why most people find the costs of enjoying the full experience to be largely justified.
Webtoon
With webcomics becoming more popular than ever before, ardent readers would love a dedicated app that lets them read some of the most popular manhwa across a wealth of genres. Webtoon helps you enjoy all this and a whole lot more, boasting a massive selection of Korean comics, along with a decent helping of manga and graphic novels. Millions of comic chapters are free to enjoy but you either need to buy coins to spend on the latest chapters or use Ad Pass to unlock multiple episodes.
What this basically means is that you can use Webtoon without spending a single dime, as long as you don’t mind watching a few ads from time to time. Dark Mode is a welcome touch, some webcomic episodes can be downloaded for offline viewing, and the app tracks your reading history to make it easier for you to resume reading from where you left off. All of these may be basic features, but it’s hard to complain once you see just how much content you can access with this free app.
GlobalComix
Comixology was a great initiative from Amazon, and many people lamented the loss of this standalone comic book e-reader when it was consolidated into the larger Amazon Kindle service. Sure, people can use the Kindle app to read comics now, but there was something magical about the great UI and comic book-friendly features of the Comixology app that was lost during this clunky Kindle integration. People who want to enjoy reading comics on an app that feels similar to this lost service should give GlobalComix a shot.
The company has formed partnerships with several major publications to bolster its library of comic books, which you can access with a monthly payment of $6.99 or a $69 annual fee. There are some comics you can check out for free, but the selection is pretty limited. The reading experience has been carefully developed to make it glitch-free and simple to use, a robust search system lets you apply filters and find exactly what you’re seeking out, the reading experience can be customized with numerous page layouts and themes, and comics can be downloaded for offline reading with a paid subscription.
Marvel Unlimited
Marvel is one of the most recognizable entertainment brands in the world, housing a wealth of popular IPs and serving as the permanent home of classic heroes like “Spider-Man,” “Iron Man,” “The Hulk,” “Wolverine,” and “Captain America,” to name a few. So, it’s understandable why most comic book fans will consider a Marvel Unlimited subscription to be a no-brainer. With a $9.99 monthly fee or an annual payment of $69, you can access a massive library that spans more than 30,000 comics. You can even check out the latest releases around three months after they come out in print.
If you’re a Marvel superfan who lives in the United States, then there’s a higher-tier subscription that may catch your eye. Along with all the previous perks, the $99 Annual Plus plan includes a membership kit and exclusive invites to Marvel events. It’s only beneficial to people in the U.S., but Marvel diehards lucky enough to enjoy these perks should definitely check them out. As one would expect from a modern comic book e-reader, chapters can be downloaded for offline viewing, and reading progress is synced across all devices where you’re logged into the app.
Methodology
For iPad owners who love to read — whether that’s the latest best selling novel, or a niche manga title your friend has told you about — there’s an abundance of apps available on the App Store. We’ve selected twelve of the best, all with their own unique design, functionalities, pros and cons. All apps are on the App Store with aggregate user scores of 4.4 stars or higher, from thousands, if not millions, of reviews.
