Plex
Your own server, with progress written back to it.
Sign in with a PIN. Illiterati picks the fastest way in — LAN, then remote, then relay — and re-picks it when you walk out the door.
iPhone · iPad · Apple Watch
Your audiobooks. Your server. Your place, kept.
Illiterati is an audiobook player for the library you already have — a Plex server, a NAS share, a folder of M4B files, or LibriVox. It keeps your place to the second across every device you own, and it never asks you to sign up for anything.
Coming to the App Store
Planned at $4.99 · iPhone and iPad · iOS 17 or later · No account, no subscription
The Illiterati player
Four ways in
Bring your own library
No store, no DRM, no account. Add a source and the books show up.
Files & iCloud
Any folder your phone can see.
Point it at a folder of M4B or MP3 files. Chapter names get cleaned up automatically; embedded chapters are used as-is.
SMB shares
Straight off the NAS, no server software.
Connect to a share and stream by byte range. Nothing to install on the other end.
LibriVox
Thousands of public-domain readings.
Search the catalogue, save a book, and it behaves like everything else in your library.
Position is sacred
Pick it up where you actually left it
Every position is a point on the whole book, not an offset into file 14. Close the app mid-chapter, open it on the Watch, drive for an hour, come back — same second. Plex progress is written back to your server, and when the phone and the server disagree by more than two minutes, Illiterati asks you instead of guessing.
- One global timeline across every file in a book
- Two-way Plex progress sync
- Smart rewind sized to how long you were away
- Bookmarks with notes
The player screen
Works without the screen
Most listening happens with the phone in a pocket
So the controls that matter are the ones you never open the app for. Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, AirPods, a real Apple Watch app that works both as a remote and on its own with books copied over, a Home Screen widget, and Siri.
- Apple Watch app — remote when the phone is near, standalone when it is not
- Lock Screen, Dynamic Island, and AirPods controls
- Now Listening widget and a Watch complication
- “Hey Siri, resume my book” via App Intents and Shortcuts
The Apple Watch app
The long-session features
Built for bedtime, driving, and the washing-up
A sleep timer that can end on the chapter instead of the clock, fades out rather than cutting, and can be extended with a shake. Speed from 0.5× to 3×. And when the timer does run out, Illiterati remembers where you were when you set it, so you can jump back to the last thing you actually heard.
- Sleep timer: durations, end of chapter, fade out, shake to extend
- “You fell asleep here” — jump back to where the timer started
- Playback speed 0.5×–3.0×, per book
- Chapter list, skip intervals, and full-book scrubbing
The sleep timer sheet
Offline
Download it now, listen where there is no signal
Downloads run in the background, per book, and a downloaded book plays with the server switched off entirely. Whether a file is on the phone is worked out from the file itself, never from a remembered path — so it survives reinstalls and container moves.
- Background downloads with per-book progress
- Works with Plex, SMB, folders, and LibriVox alike
- No stale “downloaded” states
A book’s download state
And when you want a new one
An audiobook chart that isn’t trying to sell you a membership
The app suggests what to listen to next from your own shelves — the rest of a series you started, more from a narrator you liked, books that read like the last one. This site handles the other half: what’s actually charting right now, across twenty-two categories, with a straight link to buy it wherever you prefer.
Charting this week
Straight from Audible’s catalogue, rebuilt with the site.
Character over neutrality
It should be recognisable from across the room
Illiterati borrows from the translucent-plastic machines of the early 2000s: frosted wells, gel buttons, and eleven colours to pick from. It is a skin over ordinary iOS structure, never a replacement for it — edge-swipe back, system sheets, Dynamic Type and Dark Mode all behave exactly as they should. There are speech visualizers too, off by default, for when the phone is propped up somewhere.
Try the colour picker at the top of this page.
Bondi BlueStrawberryBlueberryGrapeLimeTangerineIndigoRubySageSnowGraphite
Questions
Does Illiterati sell audiobooks?
No. It plays the books you already own or host — Plex, a NAS share, a folder on your phone, or LibriVox. The discovery pages on this site link out to shops that do sell them, and those links are affiliate links.
Do I need a Plex server?
No. Plex is one of four sources. A folder of MP3 or M4B files in the Files app works, as does an SMB share on a NAS, as does LibriVox on its own.
Does it work with Audible books?
Not directly — Audible files are DRM-protected and no third-party player can open them. Illiterati plays unprotected files: M4B, MP3, and the rest of what your own library holds.
Is there a subscription?
No. One purchase, no account, and nothing to sign into except the servers you already run.
Where does my listening data go?
Nowhere we can see it. Positions live on your device and, if you use Plex, on your own Plex server. There is no Illiterati account and no analytics inside the app.
What does it need?
An iPhone or iPad running iOS 17 or later. The Watch app needs watchOS 10 or later.
Your books. Your machine. Your place, kept.
Coming to the App Store
Planned at $4.99 · iPhone and iPad · iOS 17 or later · No account, no subscription