Witbound: read along with your own audiobooks, each word highlighted as it's narrated

[zarkside]

Hello all. I made Witbound, and I'll say up front that this is my app. A lot of the people I built it for are on this forum, so I'd rather show it here and take the questions than anywhere else.

What it does: you give it a DRM-free ebook (epub or PDF) and its audiobook (m4b, m4a or mp3), and it lines them up so that as the narrator reads, each word is highlighted on the page. Immersion reading, but with your own files, and synced at the word rather than the page. Tap any word and the audio jumps there. Your place is always kept.

A few things this crowd will want to know first:

No account, no login. There is nothing to sign up for. Open the app, add a book, read.

Your files stay yours. The matching runs on the device (or on the Mac, see below). Nothing is uploaded and there is no server holding your books. The only thing that ever leaves is an optional, anonymous timing map (no text, no audio) that lets another copy of the same book sync instantly, and you can turn that off.

DRM-free only. Audible and Kindle files will not open, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It works with the usual DRM-free sources: Libro.fm, Downpour, LibriVox, Standard Ebooks, Project Gutenberg, your own rips.

Pricing: your first book syncs free. After that it is a one-time purchase of $14.99 (local equivalent in your currency) for everything, yours to keep. There is also an optional monthly plan with a free first week for anyone who wants to try the whole shelf before deciding, but you never need it. The one-time unlock is the main thing.

Calibre and Audiobookshelf. This is the part I think this forum will care about most. The app can pair an Audiobookshelf audiobook with an ebook pulled from your Calibre library over OPDS (the Calibre content server, calibre-web, or any OPDS catalogue), searching by title and author, so you don't copy the epub across by hand. There is also a free Mac companion that connects to Audiobookshelf and Calibre, does the heavy sync on the Mac, and sends the finished book to your iPhone or iPad over your own Wi-Fi, already synced. I've tested the OPDS side against Calibre's content server; other OPDS servers should work but I haven't verified each one.

The next update, which is in review now, adds a set of reader options: choose whether a word, a phrase, a sentence or a whole paragraph lights up; a reading window that dims the lines you're not on; continuous scroll or pages; and a few things for tired eyes. All of it off by default.

What it does not do yet, honestly: it reads on iPhone and iPad only for now (Android is in closed testing, and the Mac app is a companion for syncing, not a reader). The Mac companion handles single-file audiobooks only at the moment; multi-file books are on the list. And it needs DRM-free files, as above.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/witbou...g/id6795587495
Mac companion: https://github.com/grinzark/witbound...eleases/latest

My question for you, especially anyone who tried immersion reading before and stopped: was it the syncing that put you off, or the reading-while-listening itself? And for the Calibre people, is OPDS the right way in, or would you rather it talked to Calibre some other way?

Screenshots attached. Happy to answer anything.