Alternatives to Audible app (iOS)

[tomsem]

I must say, I find the Audible app rather a mess (cluttered UI, too much devoted to selling, filters only half work, Watch app is useless, etc.). In part this was impetus to cancel my membership. And now it is even more unpleasant because of the prominent banners promoting ‘plans’ (as if I had never had one). Yet I have probably a year or two of audiobooks to consume. I don’t look forward to doing it with the Audible app, which if recent trends continue, will only get worse.

I have converted 99% of my Audible library to .m4a (OpenAudible). I’m looking for something that offers basic playback features, some way to get things from cloud storage (or AirDrop/external/network storage) and ideally, a functional Watch app.

BookPlayer looks like it will work pretty well:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bookplayer/id1138219998

Any other suggestions?

[odamizu]

I like Bound:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bound-...r/id1041727137
https://bound.timbueno.com

But I don't think it has a Watch app.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by odamizu

I like Bound:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bound-...r/id1041727137
https://bound.timbueno.com

But I don't think it has a Watch app.

Thanks, that looks good, I’m trying it out. The Web Uploader works well, it also supports AirDrop (if only I could get that to work on my old MacBook Pro, where all the files currently reside — okay set up a shared folder, and can AirDrop from my other Mac). Yes, a very nice app.

In the end if the Watch app for BookPlayer works for me, I’ll probably wind up using that (having some trouble installing any Watch app at the moment). It looks like it does exactly what I want it to. And BookPlayer is open source so perhaps it is not as dependent on a single developer to keep it going.

Either app will be a much better experience than using the Audible app.

[Debi]

I'll chime in with a vote for Book Player.

It may not be a feature you need, but for me the biggest draw is the playlist feature. I find it a good way to keep my series organized and my sister likes that it moves on to the next book in the playlist when she's driving. I have tried tons of audiobook players and Book Player is always very solid as far as doing what it says it will do.

I can't speak about the watch app. It is on my watch but I've never used it.

[tomsem]

I installed the BookPlayer Watch app, and it does at least the basics of what I want:
- select a book from list of what the iPhone app has
- play/pause/skip ahead and back 30 seconds

I would also like chapter navigation, speed control, sleep timer but the Audible Watch app doesn’t even do the first two things, so it is a clear improvement.

Audible seems to think the only reason for a Watch app is to download audiobooks to the Watch and listen to them. But use case #1 should be to be remote control for the iPhone app, and it doesn’t really do that well.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Debi

I'll chime in with a vote for Book Player.

It may not be a feature you need, but for me the biggest draw is the playlist feature. I find it a good way to keep my series organized and my sister likes that it moves on to the next book in the playlist when she's driving. I have tried tons of audiobook players and Book Player is always very solid as far as doing what it says it will do.

I can't speak about the watch app. It is on my watch but I've never used it.

Yes, also you can mark as Finished. At this point I don’t really need playlist as I don’t really deal with series or have audiobooks with one-file-per-chapter, etc.

And you can set up a Siri Shortcut to resume last played book.