Novelwave

Your ultimate audiobook player.

Download on the App Store Take the tour
The Novelwave player playing an audiobook
The Novelwave library listing audiobooks with their listening progress

The tour

Every feature, chapter by chapter.

Novelwave is made for books, not podcasts or playlists. Eight short chapters cover everything it can do, from the first import to the last page.

I Library

A place for every book.

Gather audiobooks into shelves, then tuck shelves inside other shelves, as deep as your collection needs. Sorting, filters and search keep any book only moments away.

Shelves
Nested, as deep as you like
Sort by
Title, date added or date updated
Filter
In progress, not started, finished, downloaded
Search
Titles, authors and shelves

Shelves within shelves

Organize by author, series or mood, at any depth.

  1. Library
  2. Classics24 items
  3. Russian8 items
  4. Tolstoy3 items

Filters that think ahead

See just what you're reading, or what's waiting.

  • All
  • In Progress
  • Not Started
  • Finished
  • Downloaded

Find anything, instantly

Search across titles, authors and shelves at once.

II Player

Listening, exactly your way.

Set the pace anywhere from half speed to six times faster, let the sleep timer wait for the end of the chapter, and leave bookmarks with notes on the passages worth returning to.

Speed
0.5× to 6×, in 0.05× steps
Sleep timer
5 to 90 minutes, or end of chapter
Skip
Back and forward, 5 to 45 seconds
Rewind on pause
Never lose the thread
Interruptions
Resumes after Siri, calls and alarms

Speed controls

Try it. Moby-Dick has never gone by so fast.

1.0×

21h 4m left at this speed

Sleep timer

Drift off at the end of a chapter, not mid-sentence.

Bookmarks with notes

Name them, annotate them, find them again.

III Hands-free New in 3.1

Take it on the road.

Novelwave rides along in CarPlay, answers when you ask Siri, and hands every control to Shortcuts, Control Center and the Lock Screen. Keep your hands on the wheel and your place in the book.

CarPlay
Continue, Library and Now Playing
Siri
Play, skip, chapters, speed, sleep timer, bookmarks
Shortcuts
13 actions for your own automations
By name
With Apple Intelligence on iOS 27
Lock Screen
A Live Activity for the sleep timer
Control Center
Play, pause and the sleep timer
New in 3.1

CarPlay

Cover cards show the time left on every book, and Now Playing keeps skip, speed and chapters in reach.

Novelwave's Continue screen in CarPlay, with cover cards and the time left on each audiobook Now Playing in CarPlay, with skip, speed and chapters buttons beside the cover
New in 3.1

Just ask Siri

Tap a request to hear what happens.

Moby-Dick picks up right where you left off.

New in 3.1

Shortcuts

Every control is an action, ready for your own automations.

  1. When CarPlay connects
  2. Resume Audiobook
  3. Set Playback Speed to 1.25×
New in 3.1

Ask for a book by name

With Apple Intelligence on iOS 27, say “Play Moby-Dick” and Siri knows where to find it.

New in 3.1

Without opening the app

Watch the sleep timer count down on the Lock Screen, or play, pause and set a timer from Control Center.

The Lock Screen, with Now Playing above a sleep timer Live Activity counting down from 14:47
Sleep timer Live Activity
Control Center, with Novelwave's play control and a sleep timer control set to 10 minutes
Control Center

IV Import

However your books arrive.

Bring in audio files from your iPhone or from Novelwave's own folder in iCloud Drive. Pick as many as you like, then keep them as separate audiobooks or merge them into one.

Sources
Files and iCloud Drive
Save as
Separate books, or one merged book
Destination
Any shelf, or a new one on the spot
Covers
Embedded, Photos, Files or clipboard

Separate, or merged

Four parts of one book become one audiobook, with one cover and one progress bar.

  • Moby-Dick – Part 1.m4a5h 21m
  • Moby-Dick – Part 2.m4a5h 9m
  • Moby-Dick – Part 3.m4a5h 30m
  • Moby-Dick – Part 4.m4a5h 4m

Moby-DickHerman MelvilleOne audiobook · 21h 4m

  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3
  • Part 4

From where they live

Import from Files, or connect iCloud Drive and keep books there until you play them.

  • Local Files
  • iCloud DriveConnected

Straight to the right shelf

Choose where new books land, or create a shelf without leaving the import.

  • Library
  • Classics
  • New Shelf

V Sync

Your library, everywhere at once.

Shelves, progress, chapters and bookmarks sync privately through your iCloud account with CloudKit. Start a chapter on the train and finish it at home, right where you left off.

In sync
Shelves, books, progress, bookmarks
Powered by
iCloud and CloudKit
Storage
Books download when you play them
Privacy
Novelwave sees only its own folder

Pick up where you left off

Your place in every book follows you to each device on your iCloud account.

Private by design

Novelwave creates its own folder in your iCloud Drive and can only see the files inside it. Nothing else.

Light on storage

Books stay in iCloud until you press play. Download, pause or remove any of them, whenever you like.

VI Metadata

Make every book look the part.

Fix a title, credit the right author and write a description. Fill in the genre, composer and release year, then give the book the cover it deserves.

Details
Title, author and description
Metadata
Genre, composer and release year
Artwork
Photos, Files or the clipboard
Anywhere
Even books that aren't downloaded

Tap the cover to change it.

Title
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
Author
Herman Melville
Genre
Adventure
Composer
Not Set
Release Year
1851
Description
The obsessive voyage of the Pequod and its captain, Ahab, in pursuit of the white whale.

Artwork from anywhere

Or reset to the cover embedded in the file.

  • Choose from Photos…
  • Choose from Files…
  • Paste from Clipboard

Edit before you download

Books still waiting in iCloud can be edited and organized like any other.

VII Extras

The little things, done properly.

Control playback without reaching for your phone, keep the current book on your Home Screen, and keep your library as tidy as your shelves.

Now Playing widgets

See and control what you're listening to, right from your Home Screen.

Headphone controls

Play, pause and skip from your AirPods or headset.

  • Play or pause
  • Skip forward
  • Skip back

Lock Screen and Control Center

Play, pause, skip and scrub through a chapter without unlocking.

Export to Files

Copy a single audiobook, or your entire library, to any folder in Files.

Recover storage

Novelwave finds files nothing uses any more and clears them away, without touching your books.

Light, dark or system

Novelwave follows your iPhone, or your mood. So does this page: try the switch in the corner.

Epilogue

Your next chapter starts here.

Download on the App Store

For iPhone. Requires iOS 17 or later.