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Originally Posted by BobR
I'm curious.
Is anyone using Audible.com, especially on a PalmOS device?
And a few questions that people must be wondering about in addition to me...
(1) How's the player? Would I want to use it to play mp3 ebooks that I didn't purchase through Audible, or does it make more sense to use something like Pocket Tunes?
(2) Is the Audible software necessary on a handheld at all? I.e. Are all Audible downloads available in .mp3 form that can be played on any mp3 player?
(3) What kind of books are most appropriate for the audio format? (Novels, best sellers, magazines, newspapers, etc.)
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Bob,
(1) The player is used exclusively for listening to Audible.com content: It isn't a media/mp3 player like Pocket Tunes. The Zodiac version supports the highest quality (Format 4) of any PDA. It's very good for what it does and has a few cool features like a
finger friendly mode where the buttons are bigger, and it shows a small thumbnail of the book/magazine/newspaper.
Here's a screenshot from today:
(2) The Audible.com files are a proprietary format with DRM, using the .aa (Audible Audio) file extension. You can only play them using the Audible Manager on the desktop, Windows Media Player (plug-in for Audible Manager, you have to 'authorize' it as a seperate player), an iPod, iTunes, or the Audible Player for Palm or Pocket PC, or any other 'Audible Ready' device. You can burn CDs in Audible Manager to play your Audible content using a CD player.
(3) I listen to books and magazine subscriptions (Technology Review, The Wall Street Journal). Both types are suitable IMHO, and it's very subjective and depends on your taste.
I'm a Basic Listener, so I get one book and one subscription per month. I recommend listening to the previews of books before you buy. The most important factor is whether or not you find the speaker's voice acceptable for listening.
A few more things:
Audible recently started offering "My Audible Podcasts" feeds for their subscriptions, so you can feed this into a podcatching application like iPodder to fetch your latest issues with your other Podcasts.
Audible also has RSS feeds for different categories to keep you informed of new releases, etc.
I really enjoy Audible.com, it's a great way to spend my commute. Between Audible.com content and Podcasts, I listen to stuff that I find interesting.
Hope this helps.
Brian