Quote:
Originally Posted by vrf
I personally don't have any interest in this function... I either read or listen, never both at the same time, and I'd rather have sideloadable audiobooks than immersion. But I can see the value, and it does seem like immersion could likely be made available through a future firmware update. Adding audible back to the Kindle line seems to have been a slow process, takes time, but I don't see why they would exclude the immersion option from the e-ink devices once they have the time to write the code.
|
For me, Kindle will never be my ‘preferred’ audiobook player. That device is my smartphone.
With immersion reading on iOS and Android (but not for some reason on Fire) everything is handled by the Kindle app, which has audiobook player built into it. You download the book, and have option to download ‘companion’ audiobook at any time. You can switch modes easily and there is no need to ‘sync’ reading position unless you mix in another device. Then when you delete the book, the audiobook gets deleted automatically. Even if all you ever do is listen to the audiobook, you also have access to the text for highlighting, XRay etc and more flexible navigation (via text search, TOC etc). It enhances the value of both formats. Fire’s implementation should be no worse than this, but it is: sometimes it starts TTS instead of playing the audiobook, when switching from immersion mode to the audiobook player while listening, one gets nagged with a needless ‘reading position’ dialog, and you have to remove the book and audiobook as separate operations.
If you listen to audiobook on one device and read on another, then sync has to be successful, and you do not have the same synergy between formats.
At least it appears you’ll be able to switch seamlessly between reading modes on Kindle, which was not the case before (if I remember you actually had to connect wirelessly to sync position with the previous Kindles).