Audiobooks discussion

Just upgraded my iPhone to iOS 8.4 and the audiobooks I synced from iTunes on my computer now show up as part of the iBooks app rather than as Music.

I'm glad to see Apple acknowledging that audiobooks aren't music, but the new functionality still seems behind the times. The new iBooks App has more speeds (.75, 1.25, 1.5, 2) plus a sleep timer which is wonderful, but still no ability to bookmark. There must be something about iOS that makes bookmarking audiobooks very difficult to achieve, arrgghh; it's such an obvious need.

So, the iBooks player seems like a step in the right direction, but it's far from the Smart Audiobook player.

And unfortunately, I can only use these features on my phone as my trusty iPod Touch 4 is too old for this upgrade :(

Donna, I haven't upgraded to iOS 8.4 because I've been worried about possible issues like this one you mention. I use the Audiobook feature in the Music App on my iPhone 6 to listen to my audiobooks. Does the iOS 8.4 version no longer have this Audiobook feature?

Well, if by Audiobook feature you mean the Audiobooks tab in the Music App, yes, that no longer exists. However, the new functionality definitely seems better than the old so I wouldn't consider it an error or a reason not to upgrade; my complaint was that the improvements didn't go far enough. Is there some specific audiobook functionality you're concerned about losing if you upgrade?

I haven't listened to an entire book on iPhone iBooks yet (I'm pretty wedded to my iPod) but it's seems pretty straightforward - just click on the iBooks icon instead of the Music note icon, and then choose the Audiobooks tab. All the books you had on your phone are still there, just in a different place.

I'm not sure how it handles books which are set up as a playlist though. I have one book playlist saved to iTunes now (which I synced to my iPod long ago) and it's not obvious to me how to get it to sync to the phone. But, I hardly ever listen to books that way so maybe I'm just out of practice syncing playlists.

A quick Google search indicates audiobook playlists are no longer supported; some angry user comments can be found here:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/...

So, upgrading might not be such a hot idea if you used that functionality.

Donna wrote: "A quick Google search indicates audiobook playlists are no longer supported; some angry user comments can be found here:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/...

So, upgrading might not be suc..."

Thanks for this link. It pretty much sums up the worries I had about how the new iOS would affect playing audiobooks.

Donna wrote: "Just upgraded my iPhone to iOS 8.4 and the audiobooks I synced from iTunes on my computer now show up as part of the iBooks app rather than as Music.

I'm glad to see Apple acknowledging that aud..."

I have an iPod Touch and since the new iOS 8update, I've noticed that when I sync my audiobooks from iTunes , the audiobooks appear in both iBooks and the Audible app which does allow bookmarking. Try downloading the Audible app (if you don't have it yet). It will have a new iTunes tab when you sync your iPod. It might take a few secs for the books to appear upon opening the app, but they do show up and you can play them from both there and iBooks.

Thanks JC, strangely enough I tried using the Audible app iTunes tab on my iPod just recently (partly because so many people here like using the App for non-Audible books and partly because I was frustrated by the deficiencies of the Apple update); I am loving the boookmarking :) The inability to adjust speeds hasn't been much of an issue as I still listen to most everything at 1X.

I believe the iTunes tab has been around a while though; I would swear I noticed it on both my phone and iPad even though I never tried it. Did iOS 8.4 change how it worked?

Linking below to an Amazon forum thread "iTunes audiobooks won't play in order on Audible App"; most of the comments are pre-iOS 8.4 release but the quote from Audible tech support seems to indicate that the problem is related to Audible developers trying to cope with the Apple update. Between this and the link I posted earlier, starting to feel pretty discouraged about Apple's interest in meeting audiobook listener's needs.
http://www.amazon.com/forum/audible?_...

So far, using the Audible app to listen to books synced from iTunes on my iPod 4 (iOS 6.1.6) is working well for me. It seems like there's some variety in how people save audiobooks in iTunes and I wonder if that explains why results seem to vary. I use Markable ($) to load non-Audible audiobook files into iTunes and the books end up looking more like a single book in iTunes, sort of the way Audible books look if you load them into iTunes. But, saving a book as a playlist of files instead always worked well too until this release; it seems that if Apple is going to stop supporting some approaches, they should beef up iTunes audiobook features. Seems crazy to have to buy third party software to help you load your purchased CD and MP3 file books into iTunes.

Donna wrote: "Thanks JC, strangely enough I tried using the Audible app iTunes tab on my iPod just recently (partly because so many people here like using the App for non-Audible books on the App and partly beca..."

Probably never knew about the iTunes tab in the Audible app because I don't sync my iPod Touch with iTunes.... I just know that I never used the Music app on my iPod Touch to listen to audiobooks because I tried it once and didn't like it... Plus I do love the bookmarking on the Audible app. I buy all of my audiobooks directly from Audible so the app was always more convenient.

I've only used iBooks to listen to an audiobook a couple of times after this last update. I still prefer the Audible app.... Even though the last few updates introduced some interesting bugs.

It's a little annoying that the iTunes tab books show up as a single chapter but the bookmarking works flawlessly, so it's not a big deal.

Conversely, I see now that the iBooks App on my phone lists track numbers instead of chapters (for both Audible titles and books I added via Markable); what the heck?! Maybe only audio books purchased from Apple really look normal in iBooks.

Donna wrote: "It's a little annoying that the iTunes tab books show up as a single chapter but the bookmarking works flawlessly, so it's not a big deal.

Conversely, I see now that the iBooks App on my phone ..."

I noticed that too :( And I know it's not important, but the covers look awful in iBooks even though they come from Audible. And even though they were originally downloaded from Audible and added to iTunes, the Audible app still doesn't display the table of contents. Blah. Ended up deleting from iBooks and just downloading the titles directly from the Audible app.

The iTunes tab in the audible app has been around for a while, and the moving of audiobooks from the music app to iBooks in iOS 8.4 hasn't changed the audible app behaviour, as far as I can see.

I occasionally got an error message from the audible app, saying that audiobooks can only be accessed by the iBooks app in iOS 8.4, but it still plays the audiobook just fine. However, I recently reinstalled the audible app, and that seems to have fixed it; I haven't seen the error message again, so far.

After much experimentation, my preferred way of listening to MP3 audiobooks via the audible app is to convert them to m4b, and load them via iTunes. There are a few free tools available online for converting a list of mp3s into a chaptered m4b, and the audible app recognizes the chapters just like audible files.

HBJ

Hunchback wrote: "The iTunes tab in the audible app has been around for a while, and the moving of audiobooks from the music app to iBooks in iOS 8.4 hasn't changed the audible app behaviour, as far as I can see.

I..."

Glad to know the Audible App still works fine; until one audiobook player to rule them all finally becomes available for iOS devices, it'll be good to have options. I've been so lusting after Smart Audiobook Player that I briefly considered switching to Android when I replaced my phone a few months ago. But, I stuck with Apple.

I agree, converting to m4b and loading into iTunes does work well - apparently m4b is the format I've been producing when I run Markable, although I didn't realize it.

I'm still fuzzy about the various other, non-m4b options for getting books into iTunes, so not clear how much, if any, functionality was lost when Apple moved audiobooks to iBooks. For example: when I purchased something from Tantor recently, the book downloaded as 16 mp3 files; if I hadn't had a tool to convert it to a single m4b file, what would my options have been? I could've loaded the mp3's directly into iTunes and updated the files to be treated more like book files than music; would that have been enough to make it show up in iBooks (as either 16 separate books or 1 book)? Would joining the files in iTunes make a difference to how it behaved in iBooks?