Ten things it does, and what each one doesn't.
Every entry says where it stops. A feature list that only lists wins is a feature list you cannot plan around.
Library
Everything you have read, in one list.
Import a PDF, a BibTeX or RIS file, or anything you find in Safari through Share to Fihris. Papers go into collections you make, tags you invent, and a search that reads the full text of every PDF, not just the titles. Metadata is stored in the CSL-JSON shape the rest of the reference-manager world uses, so moving in and out is boring rather than painful.
It does not do shared group libraries, and there is no Fihris account to sync them through — your library syncs through your own iCloud or not at all.
Discover
One search across seven scholarly sources.
Discover queries arXiv, OpenAlex, Crossref, Semantic Scholar, DBLP, CORE and Unpaywall at once, merges duplicates, and pulls open-access PDFs straight to the device. Each source keeps its own pace: arXiv gets one request every three seconds on a single connection, which is what its terms ask for.
It does not bypass a paywall. Where there is no open-access copy, Fihris links you to the publisher and stores the metadata.
Reader
A reader that keeps your marks where you made them.
Highlight, underline, strike through and write on the page. Scanned papers get OCR so the text is selectable and searchable. A reflowed reading mode makes a two-column PDF readable on a phone. Every mark keeps the exact span it was made on, so a note always finds its way back to the sentence.
It does not edit the PDF itself. Your markup is kept beside the file and burned in only when you export an annotated copy.
Notes
One note per paper, and a Pencil that behaves like one.
Each paper keeps a single note — rich text and Apple Pencil ink on the same canvas, with Scribble, double-tap and squeeze supported where the hardware has them. Select a passage in the paper and it drops into the note with the link back to its page intact.
It is not a second app for general note-taking: notes live with papers, and there is no free-floating notebook.
Ask
Answers that can point at a page but cannot invent one.
Fihris splits every PDF itself, so it owns the mapping from a passage to its paper, page and character range. The model is handed numbered passages and may cite only by number; it is never asked for a page number and never permitted to write one. Fihris resolves the numbers back to pages from its own index, and a number nothing matches becomes no citation at all.
It cannot tell you about a paper that is not in your library, and it will say so rather than guess. The choice of passage can still be wrong — which is why the chip opens the page.
Mind maps
A mind map is your opinion, drawn by you.
Inferred, not fetched: a mind map holds the connections you believe exist between papers and ideas. Drag nodes, group them, link them, and ask for an outline to start from. It is a thinking surface, and nothing in it claims to be a fact about the literature.
It does not derive itself from citation data — that is what Analysis is for, and the two are deliberately kept apart.
Analysis
An analysis is a fact, fetched from citation data.
Factual, not inferred: Analysis draws who cites whom among the papers you choose, from citation records fetched from the open scholarly sources. Layouts for time, cluster and hierarchy; a gap view that shows where a line of work thins out.
It is only as complete as the sources are. A citation no open index records is a citation Fihris cannot draw, and it marks what it could not resolve rather than smoothing it over.
Manuscripts
Write the paper beside the papers.
A LaTeX editor with the library one tap away: insert a citation from the cite picker, render any CSL style, and keep the bibliography in step as you write. An approximate live preview shows the shape of the manuscript as you type.
It does not compile a finished PDF on the device — no TeX engine ships with a licence we can use. Export the project, or hand it to Overleaf in one tap, and compile there.
Export
Everything leaves in a format something else can read.
Per paper or per collection: BibTeX, RIS, CSL-JSON, a Markdown file of your notes and highlights, an annotated copy of the PDF, and the original. Mind maps leave as PDF, Markdown, OPML, GraphML or DOT. Export everything writes the whole library — papers, PDFs, annotations, notes and drafts — into one archive.
There is no proprietary container to be trapped in, and no export that only Fihris can read back.
Every size
The phone is the whole app, laid out smaller.
One universal app for iPhone and iPad, iOS 18 or later. It responds to the size it is given rather than the device it is on, so Split View, Stage Manager and a rotated phone are all just widths. Dynamic Type, VoiceOver and full keyboard control throughout.
Apple Pencil is the one honest hardware difference. Everything else a large screen does, a small screen does too — in sheets and stacks instead of panes.
Every AI route except one is free.
The app is complete without either purchase. Fihris Pro adds sync, mind maps, analysis and manuscripts; Fihris Intelligence rents a relay so you never have to hold an API key.