Tens of thousands of free books are available legally for your iPad and iPhone. In this roundup, we list the best online sources, complete with compatibility tips.
If you are willing to use your new device to read ebooks and listen to audiobooks, most likely you will search for free book reader apps and audiobook player in app store books category and try which one suits you. to your needs. the most.
You are reading: Free books apps for ipad
Apple Books, iOS’s native book reading app, formerly known as “iBooks” (surprisingly, many users still use this term), is no longer preloaded on your iPad and iPhone. you have to go to the app store and download it.
You will find many free applications for reading books in the category of books. which is the best?
The main digital platforms offer the most advanced and versatile applications. In addition to Apple, it is Amazon Kindle, Nook, Kobo and Google Play Books. These applications are free to use, and all you need to do is to log in with the username and password of the corresponding account. For the Kindle app, use your Amazon credentials; the login for google books is the same as for gmail.
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The only problem with apps from the major eBook and audiobook platforms is the lack of free content. yes, you can find some free titles on apple books or google play books, but it’s enough just to let you test the interface to decide if this particular platform and app would be suitable.
what happens is that on the web you can find tens of thousands of free ebooks that you can download to your ipad and iphone. these books are available in the public domain: their intellectual property rights have expired and anyone can use them without breaking the law.
Among the books available in the public domain, you will find the most popular classic titles by Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, Franz Kafka, Charlotte Brontë or Arthur Conan Doyle, to name a few authors.
the latest j.k. rowling, stephen king, george r.r. Martin, Margaret Atwood, Jodi Picoult, or Neil Gaiman are not available in the public domain, so you won’t see them listed below. instead of hacking them, try to find out what the prices are on the ebook platform of your choice. from time to time, even the most popular bestsellers are offered at deeply reduced prices, sometimes between $0.99 and $2.99, so it’s just a matter of following the deals.
Before the list, let’s briefly review two important topics:
- how to download my own books?
- what file format to choose?
how to download own books to ipad and iphone?
there are four ways to do it:
- upload a file to icloud drive: If you have a mac computer, download the file to disk and move it to the icloud drive folder in finder. then open the file app on your ipad and tap the file to open it.
- upload a file to the cloud app; you can do the same using the cloud service of your choice, like google drive or dropbox.
- email a file: download a file to the computer, add it as attached file and send it by email. open the email on your ipad and tap the file to open it with the compatible app.
- use safari on your ipad or iphone: some sites work great on mobile devices. browse these sites right on your ipad using safari (or any other browser), search for the book and open it right away, no need to switch devices.
The fifth method is to directly use a book reading application. I do not recommend it, if you have chosen the application of a major platform. these platforms don’t make it easy to find free books because they want you to buy them.
what e-books are compatible with my app?
It all depends on the application you choose to serve as an e-book reader on your ipad or iphone.
The books on the following sites are available in different file formats, so it’s just a matter of selecting the format that’s compatible with your application.
to keep things simple, here’s a simple rule (works in 99% of cases): choose the “mobi” format for the amazon kindle app; choose “epub” format for any other application.
9 sites with free books for ipad and iphone
1. project gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is the top place to download free classics from the public domain. The books that are published here are then reused by many other sites – including the ones that you find later in this overview.
The site is powered by thousands of volunteers who are the first to digitize books that have just entered the public domain. dozens of new titles are added every month. Currently, you can choose from over 60,000 free books.
You can start by browsing the catalog of the most popular eBook downloads. the world’s most loved and adored books are here: pride and prejudice by jane austen, dracula by bram stoker, frankenstein by mary shelley, works of edgar allan poe, a tale of two cities by mark twain, little women by louisa may alcott, the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, or Jane Eyre’s by Charlotte Brontë. And it’s just the beginning!
project gutenberg is the oldest site with free e-books. It was founded by Michael S. hart, the tech visionary extraordinaire who wanted digital books to be freely available to everyone. Back in 1971 (July 4th, to be exact), he published the world’s first ebook—the electronic version of “u.s. declaration of independence.” is book number 1 in the project gutenberg catalog, and it’s still there: gutenberg.org/ebooks/1.
Because the site is available in a mobile version, you can browse its catalog directly on your ipad. project gutenberg also offers a one-click download option for three cloud services: dropbox, google drive, and microsoft’s one drive.
epub and mobi books are available in two versions: with and without illustrations and photographs from the original print edition. plus, there is an option to read each book as an html file, so you can do it on your ipad or iphone too, if you don’t feel like downloading the file.
popular sections to explore:
- Top 100 Books: With the number of downloads for yesterday, last week, and the last 30 days.
- New Books: The latest additions to the gutenberg project, sorted by publication date.
- fiction bookshelf: here you can find adventure books, detective and crime novels, horrors and romance books.
- foreign language books: in the gutenberg project, you can find hundreds of books in more than 50 foreign languages.
? mobile site: yes, available at m.gutenberg.org/? formats: mobi, epub, text, html
⇢ project gutenberg
2. internet archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the mission of “universal access to all knowledge.” The website hosts over 300 billion web pages, books, audio and video files.
The catalog of books and texts includes more than 2.7 million files, of which 1.4 million are always free, while 1.2 million are available for loan. the front page highlights the most viewed books, giving you a clue as to what other users were most interested in.
See Also: Tom Wood – Book Series In Order
You can search for books by digital release year, subject, collection, and language. Collections include American Libraries, Canadian Libraries, Project Gutenberg Books, Million Book Project Titles, and Children’s Books.
importantly, the internet archive hosts a large number of foreign language books. there are more than 20 languages with the number of published text jobs exceeding 1000 each.
When you find the book interesting, you can immediately read it in a browser viewer. scroll down to see the list of download options in the right side panel.
? mobile site: yes, the online viewer also works on iphone and ipad. formats: mobi (called “kindle”), epub, text, pdf, and typically 10 more
⇢ internet archive
3. open library
Open Library is an online platform run by the Internet Archive. It makes a vast catalog of the mother site more accessible and easier to browse.
when you go to the classic books section, you will find all the works from the internet archive. These e-books are “accessible” meaning they are free to download.
Use the search box to find the book you want to read. When you get to the book’s description page, you’ll see a list of all available digital versions, along with available download options. This feature, which gives you the freedom to choose from a variety of digitized print versions, is unique to the Open Library. By default, at the top of the list, you’ll see the most downloaded version.
You can read the book immediately by clicking or tapping the “read” button. choose the phone icon on the right side of the button to hear the audio version using read-aloud technology.
but the open library is more than a catalog of free classic books and texts downloaded by users. it also displays contemporary books that are free to read if you decide to borrow them. To do that, you may need to register with open library or find the book at your local library using worldcat or library link. each book in the library is marked with a “borrow” button instead of “read”.
? mobile site: yes, online viewer powered by internet archive ? formats: mobi, epub, text, pdf, daisy – format availability depends on the version of the book
⇢ open library
4. smash words
Smashwords is the popular ebook platform that offers with the largest number of books published by independent authors from around the world. You can find here books in several languages, all are DRM-free, and many authors offer their publications for free.
Of more than 500,000 e-books, more than 80,000 are free to download. a few thousand are usually for sale, with price cuts reaching 80%. In addition, many authors also offer their titles for the prices set by readers.
To quickly access the list of free books, simply use the combination of the top three filter bars. for example, here is the link to: all books – free – over 100k words.
You will need some time to learn how to navigate the site. only the top slider features books that are chosen via catalog selection. below, you’ll find “best selling books”, “most downloaded books”, or “top rated books”, and most of these books are pay-what-you-like.
To access the full catalog of free books, be sure to click the “+” button in the upper right corner of the “featured new releases” slider. this way you will see a paginated catalog of mostly free titles. however, only the book covers are visible.
another way to search is to choose a favorite category and then narrow the results using the “free” selector at the top.
? mobile site: yes ? formats: mobi, epub, lrf, pdf, online reader
⇢ crushing words
5. european collections
Europeana is a popular platform with digitized artworks, books, and films from European libraries, museums, and cultural institutions. It includes almost 60 million items, out of which over 12 million are digitized texts of all kinds.
Unlike the sites mentioned above, europeana collects rare editions and other items you might only find in long-established libraries. treat is like an aggregator of digitized collections from the most prestigious sources, such as the bodleian libraries or the bibliothèque nationale de france.
Most books are offered in pdf format, so this font is good only for ipad and only if you use a book reading app that supports this file format.
To find the book, simply type the term into a search box. then use the search filter on the left hand side to limit the number of results per medium (select yes for the “full text” field and then “pdf” for the file format), providing the country,
? mobile site: yes ? formats: mainly pdf
⇢ European collections
6. many books
ManyBooks offers free books in a clean and friendly interface. Most books are sourced from Project Gutenberg and sites that offer books with a Creative Commons license.
See Also: End of the Year Picture Books – The Teacher Next Door
In total, there are more than 50,000 books available for download, all with suitable covers; they would look great in the library view of the book reading app. Plus, each book is available in multiple file formats—much more than you can find elsewhere.
There are two disadvantages to be aware of. first, the site displays ads. second, you need to register if you want to download the files. There is also an online reader, but sometimes you will have to wait too long for the content to load.
? mobile site: yes, online reader available? formats: epub, mobi and many others
⇢ lots of books
7. digital libraries
This is another site that makes searching for free ebooks a bit easier. The books are shown by category right in the front page, so you can quickly get an idea how many titles are in a topic you are most interested in.
Sadly, the site has recently started displaying ads and makes it much less pleasant to use.
? mobile site: yes ? formats: epub, mobi and pdf
⇢ digital libraries
8. bookrix
BookRix is a platform that offers books from self-published authors combined with free books from the public domain. A catalog of free downloadable ebooks is an essential part of the website. It’s easy to find and explore – on the top of a list, you will find the most popular categories, including literary fiction, fantasy, romance, thrillers, and young adult fiction.
When you enter a category, you’ll see the books sorted by popularity. At the top, you’ll see free books offered by contemporary authors. most classic titles fall into the fiction category.
The books are only offered in epub format, so if you are using the kindle ios app, you will not be able to add the files unless you convert them to mobi. additionally, some self-published books are not available for download; you can only read them online in your browser. this feature also works on mobile devices.
? mobile site: yes, browser reader available? formats: epub
⇢ bookrix
9. little book
Bookboon is a company focused on providing free and paid textbooks for students and businesses.
The site offers textbooks written by professors from the best universities in the world. there are more than 1000 books that are free to download, but to do so, you need to register.
one thing to know is that free books come with ads that can take up to 15% of the content of each book.
You can find on bookboon several interesting books from the following categories: engineering, IT & programming, economics & finance, career & study of advice, marketing, strategy & management, or languages.
? mobile site: yes ? formats: pdf
⇢ bookboon
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keep exploring. here are other posts for ipad and iphone users:
the 20 best books to read on your ipad in 2022 – December 23, 2021
15 most useful accessories for ipad and ipad pro in 2022 – Dec 15, 2021
12 Best eBooks for Your Winter 2021-22 Reading List – October 20, 2021
ipad 2021 basic features, questions and answers and complete specifications – September 16, 2021
24 Best iPad 10.2 Cases: The Ultimate Overview of 2021-22 – Sep 15, 2021
See Also: Janette Oke – Book Series In Order