Apple Books has one of the best possible hardware foundations for digital reading: bright iPhone displays, large iPad screens, high-resolution text rendering, True Tone, Night Shift, Dark Mode, adjustable fonts, themes, and the increasingly advanced display technology Apple has brought to iPad Pro and iPhone. Still, reading a book on a backlit screen is not the same as reading on paper.
That difference is not only nostalgia. Paper is reflective. It relies on ambient light. It has no refresh behavior, no notification layer, no glowing pixels, and no operating system waiting underneath the page. An iPhone or iPad can produce sharper text, richer color, instant dictionary lookup, synced highlights, and an entire library in one hand, but it also asks the eyes to stare at an active display for long periods.
Apple has improved the reading experience through both hardware and software. The iPad Pro’s Ultra Retina XDR display uses tandem OLED technology, giving Apple precise control over brightness and contrast at the pixel level. iPhone Pro models have brought OLED, high brightness, high pixel density, and ProMotion to daily use. iPad and iPhone displays also use wide color, anti-reflective coatings on many models, and True Tone to adapt screen color to the surrounding environment.
Those advances make screens better, but not automatically more book-like. The best reading experience is not always the brightest or most vivid one. Long-form reading often needs the opposite: restraint. Softer contrast, stable brightness, warmer tones, fewer interruptions, and layouts that reduce the sense of staring into a light source.
That is where Apple Books still has room to grow. The app already includes useful controls, but Apple could turn reading comfort into a more deliberate part of the iPhone and iPad experience.
Screens Have Improved, but Paper Still Has an Advantage
The technical quality of Apple’s screens has changed dramatically. Modern iPhones and iPads can render text with crisp edges, high contrast, smooth scrolling, and strong brightness in different lighting conditions. OLED displays improve black levels and contrast. ProMotion makes motion feel smoother on supported devices. True Tone adjusts the white point to make the screen better match ambient light. Night Shift can move the display toward warmer tones in the evening.
The 2024 iPad Pro marked a major step with Ultra Retina XDR, using tandem OLED to combine the light from two OLED panels. Apple says the display supports 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness for SDR and HDR content, with up to 1,600 nits peak brightness for HDR. It also offers a nano-texture glass option on higher-storage models, designed to scatter ambient light and reduce glare.
That matters for reading because glare is one of the biggest enemies of comfort. A glossy tablet in a bright room can make text feel harder to focus on, even when the display itself is excellent. Reducing reflections helps the page feel more stable. The nano-texture option is not aimed only at readers, but it points toward a direction Apple could explore more deeply: screens that behave less like mirrors.
Paper still has a structural advantage because it reflects light instead of emitting it. A printed page does not glow. It becomes brighter or darker with the room. The eye is not balancing a luminous rectangle against surrounding light. E-ink devices use a similar principle, which is why many people still prefer them for long novels even when they own a much more powerful iPad.
Apple is unlikely to turn iPhone or iPad into e-ink devices. That would sacrifice the color, speed, video, gaming, drawing, and professional display uses that define those products. But Apple can keep moving the reading experience closer to paper through software that manages light more intelligently.
Apple Books Already Has the Right Starting Points
Apple Books includes several controls that can make a real difference. Books can use different page themes, fonts, background colors, font sizes, spacing options, and scrolling or page-turn styles, depending on the type of book or document. Auto-Night Theme and brightness controls also help shift the app away from a bright white page in darker environments.
The problem is that many users never adjust these settings. They open a book and read with the default appearance, even if it is not ideal for their eyes, room, or time of day. That is similar to watching TV with factory settings: it works, but it may not be comfortable.
To change text and page appearance in Apple Books on iPhone:
Books app > Open a book > Tap the page > Menu button > Themes & Settings
To change text and page appearance in Apple Books on iPad:
Books app > Open a book > Tap the page > Menu button > Themes & Settings
Those controls can change the tone of reading quickly. A warmer background can feel calmer than pure white. A larger font can reduce close-focus strain. More line spacing can make dense pages easier to scan. A font with generous shapes can feel less tiring than a compact one. Bold text can help some readers, especially on smaller screens.
Apple also lets users choose page-turn behavior or scrolling for supported content. This is more personal than it sounds. Some people read faster with vertical scrolling because it resembles web reading. Others prefer page turns because they create a stronger sense of place inside a book. For novels and long essays, page turns can make reading feel more deliberate. For reference books, manuals, PDFs, or study material, scrolling may feel more practical.
To change page turn style in Apple Books on iPhone or iPad:
Books app > Open a book > Tap the page > Menu button > Themes & Settings > Page Turn button > Curl, Fast Fade, or Scroll
For PDFs and fixed-layout documents, Apple Books can also support vertical scrolling from the document appearance controls.
To turn on vertical scrolling for PDFs in Apple Books:
Books app > Open a PDF > Appearance button > Vertical Scrolling
These options already make Apple Books flexible. The next step would be making them more intelligent. Instead of asking users to manually tune every detail, Apple could offer reading modes based on context: daytime paper, evening paper, low-light reading, outdoor reading, focus reading, and study reading.
Digital Eye Strain Is About More Than Blue Light
The conversation around screen reading often gets reduced to blue light, but the issue is more complicated. The American Academy of Ophthalmology says digital eye discomfort is not caused by blue light from screens. Discomfort is more often linked to how people use screens: staring for long periods, blinking less often, focusing at close distance, dealing with glare, reading small text, and using displays in poor lighting.
That distinction matters for Apple Books. A better reading experience should not only make the screen warmer. It should reduce the conditions that make long reading tiring.
Brightness is one of the easiest factors to control. A display that is much brighter than the room can feel harsh. A display that is too dim can make the eyes work harder. The goal is not maximum brightness. It is balance with the surrounding light.
To adjust brightness on iPhone or iPad:
Control Center > Brightness slider
To turn on True Tone on iPhone or iPad:
Settings > Display & Brightness > True Tone
To schedule Night Shift on iPhone or iPad:
Settings > Display & Brightness > Night Shift > Scheduled
Night Shift can make evening reading feel less stark by shifting the display warmer. True Tone can help the screen’s white point blend better with ambient light. Neither turns an iPhone or iPad into paper, but both can reduce the harshness of a bright white page under warm room lighting.
Dark Mode also deserves careful use. A dark background can be comfortable at night, but it is not automatically best for every reader. Some people find light text on a dark background harder to read for long stretches, especially with small fonts or high contrast. Apple Books’ themes are useful because they offer more subtle choices than only bright white or full black.
Font size is another practical factor. Many people keep text too small because they want more words on each page. That can increase effort during long sessions. A slightly larger font often feels less elegant at first but becomes more comfortable after several minutes.
To adjust system text size on iPhone or iPad:
Settings > Display & Brightness > Text Size
Inside Apple Books, the book-level font controls usually matter more than the system-wide setting. The best setup is the one that lets the user read without leaning in, squinting, or constantly shifting the device.
What Apple Could Add to Apple Books
Apple has the pieces for a much stronger reading comfort system. It already controls the hardware, the operating system, the Books app, ambient light sensing, display calibration, accessibility settings, Focus modes, and Apple Intelligence features across devices. The opportunity is to connect those pieces into a dedicated reading experience.
A “Paper Mode” in Apple Books would be the most obvious addition. It could reduce peak brightness, soften contrast, warm the page tone, limit color saturation, disable attention-grabbing interface elements, and adapt the background to ambient light. Instead of treating a book page like any other app screen, Apple could treat it as a reading surface.
The mode could also change by time of day. Morning reading could use a bright but soft page. Evening reading could use a warmer background and lower white intensity. Night reading could avoid pure black-and-white contrast and choose softer grays or cream tones. Outdoor reading could prioritize glare handling and font weight.
Apple could also improve page texture. The company does not need fake paper effects that look decorative. A subtle paper-like background, tuned carefully, could reduce the feeling of reading on a flat light panel. Many reading apps already use off-white backgrounds because pure white can feel too aggressive on bright displays. Apple could take that further with dynamic page surfaces that react to lighting.
Another useful addition would be a reading fatigue reminder that does not feel like a health lecture. After a long uninterrupted session, Apple Books could gently suggest a short break or dimming adjustment. The app could also include a reading session setting that hides time, battery anxiety, and notifications more fully than a standard Focus mode.
A dedicated Books Focus could be especially useful. When a user opens a book for more than a few minutes, iPhone or iPad could suggest silencing notifications, reducing visual motion, lowering brightness, and keeping the display from jumping between apps. Reading is one of the few digital activities where the best interface is the one that disappears.
Study reading needs a different approach. Students and professionals often read PDFs, textbooks, manuals, and research documents. Apple Books could improve annotation visibility, margin notes, cross-device page memory, citation export, and split-view reading with Notes. Those improvements would not make the screen more like paper visually, but they would make digital reading feel less fragmented.
The iPad Has a Special Reading Role
The iPhone is convenient because it is always nearby. It is useful for short chapters, audiobooks, samples, commutes, quick reference, and late-night reading. The iPad is where Apple can get closer to the feel of a book or magazine.
A 13-inch iPad Pro or iPad Air can display large pages, two-column layouts, comics, PDFs, children’s books, textbooks, magazines, and illustrated editions in a way an iPhone cannot. The larger surface reduces the need to compress text. It also allows more comfortable reading distance, which can help reduce the sense of staring closely at a small screen.
The iPad Pro’s Ultra Retina XDR display is excellent for color and contrast, but Apple could better use that hardware for long reading. A tablet this thin and bright can become a premium reading device if the software makes the page calmer. The nano-texture glass option is already a step toward reducing glare, though its availability on only some configurations limits its reach.
Apple could also create more iPad-specific layouts in Books. A reading mode that mimics facing pages, supports wider margins, and offers a more stable page position could make iPad feel closer to a hardcover. A magazine mode with better text scaling and fewer PDF compromises could make Apple Books stronger for visual publications.
The iPad mini deserves attention too. Its size is closer to many paperbacks, making it one of Apple’s most natural reading devices. A future iPad mini with a more advanced display, better anti-reflective treatment, and reading-first software could be one of the most comfortable Apple Books devices.
The missing ingredient is not performance. Reading does not need an M-series chip. It needs display comfort, weight balance, battery life, page clarity, and software that respects quiet attention.
Reading Comfort Should Be an Apple Books Identity
Apple Books has often felt like a polished store and library rather than a deeply ambitious reading environment. It handles books, audiobooks, PDFs, samples, purchases, collections, and syncing well enough, but it has not become the center of Apple’s thinking around long-form reading.
That is a missed opportunity. Apple has invested heavily in health, focus, accessibility, education, and premium displays. Reading sits at the intersection of all four. A better Books experience could help people read longer, study more comfortably, reduce distraction, and get more value from the screens they already own.
The next generation of Apple Books does not need to chase Kindle directly. Apple’s advantage is not e-ink. It is integration. The app can know the device, display type, ambient lighting, user preferences, accessibility settings, Focus mode, and reading history. It can sync across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch for audiobooks. It can connect with Notes, Dictionary, Translate, Look Up, and future Apple Intelligence tools.
A more paper-like Apple Books would not mean pretending an iPad is paper. It would mean learning from paper: lower visual aggression, fewer interruptions, stable layout, comfortable contrast, and a sense that the page is there to be read, not managed.
Apple’s display technology has already made iPhone and iPad better for reading than earlier mobile screens. The next improvement should be less about brightness and more about restraint. A great reading screen is not the one that can shine the hardest. It is the one that lets the words stay in front while the technology fades into the background.
