As you all know, I am a huge fan of Audible.com and in some ways, it just keeps getting better and better. Audible has been available since the very beginning on the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, but to load content to your device, you had to be connected to iTunes. True, you could purchase from the Apple Store, or you could purchase directly from Audible, but you still had to download the files to your iTunes machine and they would automatically load into iTunes. But you still have to sync the files to your device. Well, no more!
Audible Apps for iPhone/Touch, Blackberry, and Android
I have been beta testing the App for the Android platform for a few weeks now, and while it was a bit unstable to start, it is making good progress now. However, last week I was very surprised to see that an app was released for the iPhone/Touch platform that was just marvelous. It now allows direct access to my Audible library online and I can download directly to my device or I can just stream the content as needed. Obviously for the later I need to have Internet connectivity. One of my biggest beefs with Audible in the Android beta is that they only allow the download/playing of the new Enhanced format. The Enhanced format sounds wonderful. But it weighs in at 28.5MB/hour of audio! Their previous largest version is Type 4 at 14MB/hour and frankly, that sounds just fine to me as is. If I side-load (copy directly from my already download Audible content) to my Android device, it will refuse to play. At a time when Phone Carriers are putting the screws to us and capping our bandwidth, it is not a wise thing to require double the file size, at least in my opinion. As far as I can tell, there is no plan on their part to change this, either.
Audible App for the iPhone/Touch
When I loaded this app to my iPad, you can imagine what I was expecting. However, I am happy to say that I was mistaken in my assumptions. As I already had some 11.5GB of Type 4 Audible content on my device, I was very happy to see the Audible app quickly picked up on that fact and make it directly available to me for listening. As the app is built to support iOS4, it fully supports serving up audiobooks in the background, while you do something else. On the downside, if you download directly, the same nonsense applies: you can only download the enhanced format. The other, smaller formats are not even available for download. I just don’t understand where they are going with this format thing. Maybe the enhanced format makes it easier to stream or something. Anyway, I am happy enough to have this app available on the iPad now. But, it does mean that my hope of moving all my Audible to Android is now dashed. I currently have over 680 audiobooks, all download in Type 4, at a weight of 73GB. I am NOT going to download even a portion of those again to use on the Droid!
Audible for iPhone Release Notes
Version: 1.0
Release Date: July 8th, 2010
This is the first release of the Audible for iPhone application. Features include:
- Your entire Audible My Library, available for wireless playback.
- The best audiobook player available on the App Store, including chapter navigation, bookmarking, advanced playback controls, and more.
- In-depth stats and trophies gained from listening to your favorite audiobooks.
- The latest news from your favorite authors, narrators, and Audible events.
- A sleep timer for listening to audiobooks before going to bed.
- Share your titles and listening habits with your friends and social networks.
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