06-16-2016, 08:31 PM | #31 | |
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08-14-2016, 08:13 PM | #32 |
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As an update, I've been using iBook to listen to my audiobooks recently. It doesn't have playlist, but since I'm not in the car as much, that's not as important at the moment. I can create a collection and manually order that collection. The only downside is that iBooks still doesn't move to the next audiobook in a collection at the end of an audiobook.
The good news is that iBooks does a very credible job of syncing the location via iCloud from device to device. I currently listen to audiobooks in the car on an iPhone 6S that doesn't have a sim, so it's just like a large iTouch. As long as it's on the wifi, the currently location on the audiobook will be picked up by my iPhone and my iPad mini. Pretty nice. I hadn't noticed this behavior before, so it might have been put in with the iBook update that syncs the epub and PDF books in the cloud. So basically, the only functionality lacking is the move to the next audiobook. That might not be as big of a deal if my car stereo supported cartunes. |
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09-15-2016, 09:26 PM | #33 |
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Ah well, another set of updates to both iBooks and the Audible app, still no playlist. The only time it's really a problem for me is those annoying times when the book ends in the middle of driving so I can't look at the iPhone to start the next book, which of course, happened today.
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12-11-2016, 07:26 AM | #34 |
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My most recent app to try is book mower. Book mower is apparently a stripped down version of Bookmobile, i.e. the author refers to it as Bookmobile without the support for podcast. I've been using it for a couple of days now and it doesn't seem to have the issue that Bookmobile has, i.e. it's pickedup where it left off every time that I've used it.
I'm going to be in the car quite a bit next week, plus I'm nearing the end of my current audiobook, so I should get a good test of the app, from the stand point of not losing it's place and moving to the next book when it finishes the current book. If it can handle all that then I think I've found my car audiobook player of choice (at least until Apple gets their head out and fixes the iTunes/iBooks mess). My car entertainment system allows me to pause and start the playing via the car touch screen, so it seems workable. It's not perfect, but as they say, perfect is the enemy of good enough. |
12-15-2016, 08:09 PM | #35 |
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Well, that was a waste. My car entertainment center struggled with bookmower. Everytime I turned off the engine, it would go back to music rather than bookmower. I had to go to the iTouch and hit play there. Then when it got to the end of the audiobook, it started from the beginning again rather than move to the next book. Does not meet my needs at all.
My next experiment is to switch to mp3 audiobooks and use music to play them. The books are my audible audiobooks converted to mp3. Hopefully, I can keep them in music playlist and play them from there, just like the good old days before Apple switched audiobooks to iBooks. We shall see. I'm on the road a good bit tomorrow and the first book is a 1 hour short story, so I should have a good idea how it's going to work by Saturday. |
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12-17-2016, 01:14 PM | #36 |
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This seems to be working better. I hadn't gone in this direction before, because my old car iTouch was an older model that didn't have enough memory for a number of MP3 audiobooks, which tend to be a lot bigger than the audible format. I just purchased a new one last week, which has a lot more room. Right now, I have some 19 days worth of audiobooks, plus about a weeks worth of music of various genres and I'm still less than half full. The car's entertainment system actually works pretty well with the music app, it just doesn't work with iBook or 3rd party apps well.
I ran through one short story and then started on a second book without having to touch the iTouch. When the first program ended, the next book started, which is what I want. Plus, it managed to keep the correct place through out a couple of days. |
12-24-2016, 09:09 AM | #37 |
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It looks to me like file size is going to be an issue in any event. I just received a notice from Amazon/Audible that formats 3 and 2 were being eliminated
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12-24-2016, 03:10 PM | #38 | |
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So far the good news is that my car entertainment system handles the mp3's just fine. I can select from a playlist, fast forward, etc. The bad news is that sometimes it can lose it's place. I think that I'm ok as long as I remember to pause the player before shutting down the car. It's not perfect, but it's better than any of the alternatives, so far. I suspect that most of my issues have to do with the Honda entertainment system rather than Apple. |
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02-19-2017, 05:32 PM | #39 |
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And a couple of months down the road, I'm still pretty much in the same place. Converting to mp3's and then putting them in a playlist. I've learned that I need to make sure that I hit pause before shutting down the car if I don't want any issues.
I'm still searching for an app that will allow me to maintain playlist on my computer and have those propagate out to my iOS devices, just like I do with iTunes playlist. I tried speed reader pro briefly this morning when I read a review that said that it would pick up the playlists that have audiobooks in them, but I haven't been able to get it to work yet. It really does seem odd to me that more people don't consider this a problem. Back when Apple pulled audiobooks out of the music app on iOS devices only, there was a fair amount of complaints about it. I really did expect Apple to get around to standardizing how you access audiobooks between the desktop and mobile devices, but so far, there is no hint that they plan to do this. Nor is there any hint that they plan to support audiobooks in the cloud, like they do with PDF's. |
06-30-2017, 12:46 AM | #40 |
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Any current recommendations for audiobook apps for iOS? What are people using and liking nowadays?
I'm particularly interested in apps that will allow me to download MP3 audiobooks from Dropbox. Thanks! |
06-30-2017, 01:22 AM | #41 |
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Apple Music works for MP3 udiobooks. SO does Foobar.
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06-30-2017, 10:28 AM | #42 |
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Hum, downloading from dropbox. I can't say that I've tried that much. Music supports mp3's, but it doesn't download from dropbox. This thread lists all the different apps that I've tried over the years. I'm still looking for the perfect solution. Right now, I've come to peace with mp3 with music in the car and iBooks or Audible with aax out of the car. I've come to the conclusion that if I want something better, I'm just going to have to write it myself.
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06-30-2017, 12:30 PM | #43 |
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ACE player can stream music.
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07-01-2017, 12:08 AM | #44 |
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I've found that Book Mower let's you download direct form Dropbox (and other sources). Kinda cool in that you can zip the MP3 files in a folder and it will download as a single audiobook. But it looks like it won't sync reading location between iDevices (unless I'm missing something).
I think iBooks will sync reading location between iDevices, yes? |
07-01-2017, 05:36 PM | #45 | |
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