Apple Books-inspired open-source reader for iOS.
Featured in iOS Dev Weekly #751 — From WebView to CoreText: Building a Native EPUB Reader for iOS.
Yuedu is an open-source reading application focused on a high-quality local and open reading experience. One app for EPUB3, comics, audiobooks, RSS, and open catalogs — rendered natively with CoreText, no WebView.
| Formats | EPUB3 · TXT · CBZ Comics · Audiobook · PDF (WIP) |
| Content | Local Library · WebDAV · OPDS · RSS · Content Sources |
| Reading | Vertical Writing · Themes · Annotation · Bookmarks |
| More | Reading Statistics · iCloud Sync |
Most readers wrap content in a WebView. Yuedu renders every page with CoreText, which gives precise pagination, true CJK vertical writing, frame-accurate text-to-speech sync, and native text selection — at native performance. The full story is in From WebView to CoreText.
UI (SwiftUI)
↓
Reader (CoreText)
↓
Parser (EPUB / TXT / CBZ / RSS / Audio)
↓
Storage (Local-first)
↓
Sync (WebDAV / iCloud / OPDS)
Requirements: Xcode 16+ · iOS 18.0+ · Swift 6.0
git clone https://github.com/CHANG-JUI-LIN/Yuedu-reader.git
cd Yuedu-reader
open Yuedu-Reader.xcodeprojThen select a simulator (or your device) and run.
Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for conventions and the PR process.
MIT.