New iOS Music app no longer contains audiobooks

[PJ07]

As part of the Apple Music update on iOS, it looks like audiobooks have been moved from the Music app to the iBooks app. I can live with that. But the audiobook chapter titles in iBooks only display the chapter number, not the title (see image). So if you have a reference book or any book with a lot of chapters and you want to listen to a specific chapter (say, The Life Of Agrippa), you have to know it is chapter 188. Argh, not good.

 

Anyone know if it is possible to display chapter titles for audiobooks in the iOS iBooks app?

 

 

[kirkmc]

Good point. I just synced a couple of books from Audible, and only see track numbers. Sigh.

[Iain1498576215]

For what it's worth, you can change the Media Kind to "Music", and then have the audiobooks back in the Music app. You'll see the titles this way, plus you'll still be able to use playlists, as well as lyrics/information (which as far as I can tell is inaccessible from the iBooks app). On the other hand, you'll lose the sleep timer and the option to play at different speeds.

 

Plus I'm a little worried about what having all these "audiobooks" renamed as music is going to do to the already-messy iCloud Music Library.

 

In Apple's forums some people have relabelled the Audiobooks as iTunesU files. I haven't yet tried that approach yet.

 

Like you, I've got lots of In Our Time files - they began as podcasts, but got relabelled because the handling of podcasts on iOS became so awful; then they were audiobooks; now they're becoming music. The upside of disappearing titles is that at least it makes me listen to the duller sounding ones that I've been avoiding.

[kirkmc]

Most audiobooks won't get synced to iCloud Music Library, since that requires that files be at least 96 kbps.

[Iain1498576215]

Ah - thanks for the quick reply. I'd missed that restriction, and yes, most of those files are under 96 kpbs. So, if they're not synced to the iCloud Music Library, what does that mean? My current interpretation, which may be totally wrong, is:

 

a) if iCloud Music Library is turned off on my iPhone (which is my current status): nothing changes. They're still there, because they're synced by smart playlist from my iMac every few days. (Most of these files are in playlists along the lines of "10 most recent unplayed episodes of 'This American Life'", or whatever, with new files shuffling in as others are played.)

 

b) if iCloud Music Library is turned on on my iPhone: suddenly I don't have those audiobooks/files on my iPhone anymore.

 

(The above assumes those once-Podcasts and then-Audiobooks are now-Music because the playlists and titles are very important to me.)

[kirkmc]

What you say is only the case if your audiobooks are set as the Music media kind, and if they're under 96 kpbs (or if they're in big files, over 200 MB). They'll show as Ineligible in the iCloud Status column in iTunes.

[Iain1498576215]

What you say is only the case if your audiobooks are set as the Music media kind, and if they're under 96 kpbs (or if they're in big files, over 200 MB). They'll show as Ineligible in the iCloud Status column in iTunes.

Yes, they're showing as Ineligible. So what still confuses me: if I turn on iCloud Music Library, those files will disappear from my iPhone? (Unless I refile them as audiobooks again, but at the moment the iBooks app is making the early versions of the Podcasts app look like a miracle of usability.)

[Iain1498576215]

More issues: changing Audiobooks to Music may be a one-way trip. For the audiobooks that are eligible (i.e. high enough bit rate) for the iCloud Music Library, they've been synced and they've got "iCloud Status = Uploaded", and now there's apparently no way to change the Media Kind (except for dragging the file to the desktop and then reimporting it). I click on the menu in Get Info / Options / Media Kind and Music is the only option that appears.

 

EDIT: OK, so it looks like if I turn off the iCloud Music Library within iTunes, I'm then able to change the file back to Audiobook, so it's not entirely a one-way trip. I do wonder what all this toggling of the iCloud Music Library is doing to me.