BookScout 1.3: snap your quotes, track your loans, and welcome Claude
BookScout is the companion for your physical library: catalog your books, keep your favorite quotes, and know exactly what you have read — all on your device, with no data resale. Version 1.3 is our biggest update yet: it saves you time on everyday gestures and opens the reading assistant to a new AI model.
Here is everything that’s new.
1. Capture a quote with a single photo
No more typing passages by hand. Take a photo of the page and BookScout recognizes the text, pre-filling the quote form automatically. All you do is review and save.
Text recognition runs entirely on your device, powered by Apple’s Vision framework — your photos never leave it. It works on iPhone and iPad, and now on Mac too, via Continuity Camera (your nearby iPhone acts as the camera).
2. Never lose a lent book again
You know the story: a friend borrows a novel… and you never see it again. BookScout 1.3 adds loan tracking: mark a book as loaned (to whom, and when), with an optional reminder so you remember to ask for it back. When it returns to your shelves, one tap marks it as returned.
It’s exactly the kind of detail online catalogs overlook: your library is a real, physical thing.
3. Scan ISBNs right on your Mac
ISBN barcode scanning comes to the Mac. Thanks to Continuity Camera, your iPhone or iPad becomes your Mac’s camera: point it at the back cover and the book is added with its metadata. If no device is available, BookScout falls back to the built-in webcam.
4. A new reading companion: Anthropic’s Claude
BookScout’s AI assistant — for chatting about your reading and querying your library — welcomes a new provider: Anthropic (Claude), alongside Google Gemini, OpenAI and Mistral. You pick the model that suits you.
The assistant stays optional and runs on your own API key: you decide whether — and with which provider — to turn it on. On Mac, you can even run a local model for fully offline AI.
Plus: polish everywhere
- Mac widgets redesigned and finally readable, with proper native rendering on macOS.
- Quote sharing on Mac (previously iOS-only), with a share card that no longer truncates long quotes.
- More reliable deep links, including on Mac.
- Numerous localization and robustness fixes.
🔒 What about privacy?
Your library lives on your device and syncs only through your own private iCloud — never on our servers. Text recognition happens on-device. The AI assistant is optional and uses your own key: only the questions you ask are sent to the provider you chose. BookScout does not collect your reading data.
How to get it
BookScout is available on iPhone, iPad and Mac, with a generous free tier and a single one-time purchase to unlock the unlimited library — no subscription. The 1.3 update is free for all existing users.