If you enjoy sitting down with a good book, the digital world has many options beyond physical books these days. And if you don’t own a dedicated reading device, you can easily use your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
While it makes sense to use the Apple Books app on an Apple device, it’s certainly not the only option. Kindle from Amazon is another great choice for enhancing your digital library.
So which is one best; the Apple Books or Kindle app? We’ll walk you through the features, differences, and considerations of each one to help you decide which is right for you.
Related:
- Tips and tricks for using Apple Books in iOS 13 and iPadOS
- How to buy books on your iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch using the Kindle app
- Apple Books or iBooks Missing After the Latest Upgrade, How-To Fix
App availability
The Apple Books and Kindle apps are both free to download and available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
With the Audiobooks app for Apple Books on your Apple Watch, you can listen while you walk, run, or work.
With Kindle, you can also read books on Android, Windows, and other e-readers besides the Amazon Kindle. Plus, if you use Audible, you can listen to Kindle books with Alexa on your Amazon smart speaker.
Download for free on iOS: Apple Books, Kindle
Common app features
Since Apple Books and Kindle both have great features, we’ll run through those they have in common first.
Sync your books
You can start a book on one device and continue reading where you leave off on another with both apps. This makes for a wonderful way to read no matter where you are.
Use bookmarks, notes, and highlights
Terrific features for reference books, textbooks, and manuals are the bookmark, note-capturing, and highlighting options that the apps offer.

Bookmark pages to revisit, makes notes as you go along, and highlight passages to make them stand out.
Look up words
Not sure what a word means? You can look words up directly with each app’s built-in dictionary. Just tap, hold, and get the definition.
Customize your reading experience
You can select the font style and size, orientation, background color, and automatic scrolling for Apple Books and Kindle. These options give you personalized ways to enjoy your books and fit your environment or time of day.

Search your books
Apple Books and Kindle also give you the option to search your books. So if you’re looking for a particular word, phrase, or page number, just use the search feature.
Receive notifications
If you’d like to get push notifications on your device for book recommendations, reading goals, tips, or book club updates, you got it!

Add books to a wish list
The Apple Books app lets you browse books and then add them to a list of those you want to read. Kindle is similar only that you can add books to your Amazon wish lists.
Set reading goals
If you want to spend more time reading, each app lets you set reading goals. This is an excellent way to make sure you’re setting aside the time you deserve to read every day. And you can track your reading progress with the reading goals features too.

Standout features
As you can see, the Apple Books and Kindle apps offer the same types of basic features. But they each bring something a little different to the table too.
The Apple Books app

PDF markup: With Apple Books you can also work with PDF files. This is a handy way to save and mark up files you receive via email.
Family Sharing: If you use Apple’s Family Sharing, you can share books and audiobooks you purchase with up to six of the family members in your group.
The Kindle app

Goodreads community: If you use Goodreads, you can connect to it directly from the Kindle app to see what your friends are reading, recommend books yourself, and take part in the overall community.
Translations, Wikipedia, and X-Ray: Along with the built-in dictionary for word lookups, Kindle lets you translate to another language or get details on a person, place, or word from Wikipedia or the X-Ray tool.
Considerations
Whenever you’re picking between two options, one of the best ways to decide which is right for you is to look at the pros and cons of each. Here are a couple of the major deciding factors for many when it comes to the Apple Books versus Kindle debate.
Apple Books considerations

Apple Books is built right into your Apple devices, syncs with iCloud, and uses your Apple ID. So no matter which device you use it on, you’re always in sync.
Unfortunately, Apple Books currently only works on Apple devices. So if you own an iPhone, for example, and then switch to an Android device, you won’t be able to use Apple Books on that Android phone.
Kindle app considerations

Since Kindle is an Amazon product, you can take advantage of discounts on books as an Amazon Prime member. Plus you can receive free books each month by choosing from the featured collection in the First Reads section.
Unfortunately, the Kindle app does not support book purchases. If you discover a book that you’d like to buy, you’ll need to head to the Amazon website to make your purchase. You can then select the location where you want to download the book, if you have more than one Kindle app.
Which will you pick?
After reading about the availability, common and standout features, and the different things to consider, which will you choose? Will it be the Apple Books or Kindle app?
If you still can’t decide, why not use both? You might find a book in Apple Books that you can’t get in the Kindle app or vice versa. They both offer tremendous features with millions of books to choose from and are each great apps for readers of all ages.
But if you do decide to use only one, be sure to let us know in the comments below which one you pick and your reasons!

Sandy worked for many years in the IT industry as a project manager, department manager, and PMO Lead. She then decided to follow her dream and now writes about technology full-time. Sandy holds a Bachelors of Science in Information Technology.
She loves technology– specifically – terrific games and apps for iOS, software that makes your life easier, and productivity tools that you can use every day, in both work and home environments.
Her articles have regularly been featured at MakeUseOf, iDownloadBlog and many other leading tech publications.
Thanks for the info. I used the Kindle DX for years, and loved it. I am visually
impaired and the size and font were perfect. Amazon discontinued the DX
and replaced it with readers which are much too small to accommodate a
large font. So, I switched to a 2020 iPad Air (almost 11″) which serves me well.
People with impaired vision are not a priority because it’s all about economics.
I understand. I don’t know yet if Amazon charges more for books sent to
an Apple product.
I really like Apple Books but I just had an experience that I cannot believe. 4 books down in a 5 book series and the 5th book is “no longer available in Apple Books”. The only comments from Apple support were to confirm that it’s not available (no sh) and, when pushed as this being an unsatisfactory answer, a suggestion to “contact the publisher or content provider”. Why would they leave the first 4 books there and remove the 5th?
I downloaded the Kindle app and purchased the 5th book without a problem from Amazon.
Personally, I think everything about Apple Books – particularly the interface and the ability to purchase in app – but I am fuming about being left hanging for the last book in a series with the only support being a tough luck buddy, not our problem fob off.
Kindle books appear considerably cheaper, too. The book I needed was about 2/3 the cost of the price on Amazon as compared with the other 4 books in the series which I purchased an the Apple Books store.
A comparison of features was just what I was seeking. Very helpful. Thanks!
Another feature of the Kindle app is the ability to read checked-out library ebooks without the need for another app such as RBdigital, Overdrive, Axis 360 etc.
I disagree the kindle app is crap,freezes all the time ,does not put the books in order properly,is slow and is no where near as good as Apple Books because Amazon only care about making money and now there service and software reflect that,get your act together Amazon .
On top of this you have to spend $50.00 us before you can do a review unlike Apple because they are greedy.
Reviews are important for writers to sell books which also help Amazon ,so why do you do this Amazon?
I bought a Kindle Paperwhite several years ago and have an Android phone but a IPad and MacBook…so I do look at options. The audible matter as I try to read and listen iban English and Spanish is a Go with Kindle.
Unfortunately, I find the inability to use my Apple Pen in IPad a drag and may go to some Apple Books in the future to make use of Notability for notes while reading…interesting dilemma, isn’t it?
For me Immersion Reading is the tiebreaker. With the Kindle reading app on my Amazon Fire tablet I can download and integrate audio books from Audible into ebooks in my Kindle app. From the Kindle app I can then read an ebook, listen to the audio book or read and listen at the same time.