A while back I complained about the lack of tools for mining vocab on iOS devices. Android users can run Yomichan from within Kiwi Browser and mine cards using a special version of Anki Connect but iOS has nothing like that. We have 10ten reader but it doesn’t support custom dictionaries, it’s extremely clunky to use, and it doesn’t support flash card creation. After I complained about this, the developer behind Game2Text was kind enough to develop an app that would solve my problems.
The app is called [Immersion Reader](https://apps.apple.com/jp/app/immersion-reader/id6443721334) The main functionality is for mining vocab from ebooks. It is essentially a wrapper for Ttu Reader and works completely offline. You can import Yomichan format dictionaries and lookup words with a single tap and save unknown words to a list which can be exported. The resulting file can be imported from Anki Desktop.
There are some other features as well, but they’re still in development. There’s a section for audio books and read-along content which is targeted at lower level users, and there is also a search function to take advantage of Yomichan format dictionaries. He also recently added a web browser! The browser is still in development so it’s missing a lot of features like saving cookies, bookmarks etc but it is at least useable. Because it’s still in the early stages I personally browse via safari and then copy links to open within Immersion Reader. After features like cookies and bookmarks are added I will probably switch to browsing from within the app full time. Ad blocking is being added next though. Currently the web browser is locked behind a one-time payment, but all of the other features are completely free.
I can’t recommend this enough for anyone studying on iOS. As the app is still in development there are a lot of things which are still being added and some features which are not yet fully expanded, but the functionality for reading and mining from ebooks is basically complete and websites are mineable as well. Check it out if you’re on iOS and have been looking for something similar.