News: Android

A year after the previous beta release, the beta branch is back. Experimental features are available again, and we hope beta updates will become regular once more.

This release includes all changes from the latest stable version, 3.8.28. Additionally, PDF rendering now uses PDFium, and TTS replacement patterns can now contain spaces.

This update fixes a few annoying UI issues. The reading screen now properly respects Android system gestures, and book covers load more smoothly in the library view.

The LitRes catalogue has been removed, as it no longer makes much sense to keep it. Instead, we’ve added links to Readino in selected countries.

The main improvement in this version is significantly faster loading of ePub files with complex embedded styles. For some books, opening time has been reduced from several minutes to just 1–2 seconds.

Additional improvements include enhanced hyphenation logic (especially for English) and a fix for the Menu Settings page — all items are now moveable.

This release focuses on improvements for ePub books:

• Updated parsing engine for better standards compliance.
• Relaxed requirements so more “incorrect” ePub files can now be opened.
• Cosmetic changes in LCP-protected ePub support, making book acquisition and library display smoother.

The release is already available on our site and will roll out gradually in the app stores. The same updates for iOS and Desktop are coming soon.

The October update delivers minor fixes and improvements. The most notable change is an updated algorithm for word-breaking, with better handling of quotation marks in specific cases.

This release also includes a new version of the DjVu plugin, now compatible with newer devices. Compatibility updates for the main app and other plugins have already been introduced in recent versions.