Buy Audible books on iPad?

[Maggie Leung]

I'm a tech doofus, so it's possible that I'm missing how to sample Audible books before buying. I don't see it working via browser or the Audible app. So far, I've been sampling on laptop, buying, then loading via iTunes. Anyone know an easier way to do this?

Seems as if sampling on iPad should be straightforward, with its speaker and all. I can tap such on dictionary and foreign-language apps, and sample music online, for instance. Is this an Audible problem? If so, I will bug them about it.

[Rob_E]

As far as sampling audio books, I don't know. I haven't tried it. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a flash-based feature and therefore incompatible, but that's just guesswork on my part. I do seem to remember Audible at one point mentioning a portable device-focussed website in the works. Perhaps that will address the issue.

As for buying Audible books, that can be done, but with some caveats. You can use the website as normal for buying the books but then you cannot download them. But there is an Audible app for the iPhone/iPod Touch that I am assuming would also work for the iPad (it may even be a universal app. I'm not sure, but for audio content the screen size is not as big of an issue.). The Audible app allows you to do two things: It allows you to access and play any Audible content in the iTunes library on your iOS device, and it allows you to download and play any content in your Audible library on-line (it may require wifi to download files). It will not add your new books to the iTunes library on your iOS device. To do that, you need to go the old route of downloading the files to your computer, adding them to iTunes, and syncing. But it does give you a way get a new audio book on to your iPad and listen to it without having to resync your device.

[Maggie Leung]

Thanks, Rob. I already use the Audible app and like it. Great timer feature.

It took forever to download books via wi-fi, but it worked. Audible was having server problems at the time, and I haven't tried loading via wi-fi since.

It won't let you load much over 3G (at least last I tried), so maybe buying on laptop and syncing through iTunes is the only way to work it right now anyway? Figured I'd ask. The only things I've been able to load via 3G are really short stories or samples.

I'm not clear why Flash would be needed to sample sound, but who knows. I notice that Audible often has server problems. Maybe their tech sucks?

[Rob_E]

I don't know. I've not had any problems downloading books via the app, but I don't do it often, and I've only done it over wifi.

But I've had many problems with their website. Sometimes it tells me file has automatically started downloading when it has not. And sometimes it's just slow. Painfully slow. I haven't noticed that so much lately, so maybe they've fixed it, or maybe it was a browser incompatibility that was addressed by an upgrade or because I changed browsers. Or maybe it's just that I've trained myself not spend a lot time browsing. My wishlist exceeds my credit allowance and my listening time allowance by quite a bit, so I mostly pop on to add a specific title to my wishlist or to buy a specific title from my wishlist.

But if it's their servers that can't handle the bandwidth, rather than poor html coding on the site, then it would make sense that downloads would be slow even from the app.

[Maggie Leung]

I'm hoping that their tech will improve because Amazon bought 'em, but maybe that's wishful thinking.

I've had really slow loading times on the Web site, too. I usually buy only every few months or so, so no biggie. I let a few credits accumulate, then buy.

I generally buy classics I've already read and enjoyed, because I find listening too slow for a new book. Listening to a well-loved classic is great when too tired to read and just drifting off, I find.