[tomsem]

When I first started listening to audiobooks, it was hard for me to focus, but after a few, that is not an issue. I think listening-to-read is a skill that requires some training (unless your parents still read to you, etc.).

I think of them as complementary formats, and indeed, avail myself of Kindle’s ‘immersion reading/Whispersync for voice’ frequently. Even if I mostly listen, there are times I like to go to the actual text, especially if I want to make notes or highlight something.

Also one of the weaknesses of audiobook apps is the inability to Search for a phrase or word directly. The only recourse is to skip around and hope you can stumble on it. Audiobooks could have a searchable index without needing to have the complete text. Type a word or phrase and it could return locations that match up.

Thus (since I mosly partake of Amazon’s ecosystem):

I would like to see the Kindle app enhanced to be able to play audiobooks in one’s Library standalone:
- X-Ray ‘index’ overlaid so you can get a description of people, terms etc, and be able to use that to navigate to references of same, just as you can with Kindle books with X-ray feature
- ‘real’ chapter titles that align with the text’s (instead of generic ‘chapter 1, chapter 2’ that don’t necessarily correspond to book chapters) - while the narrator reads the chapter titles as they are encountered, it would be nice to use those for visual navigation as well
- Goodreads integration