Ibooks broken as audiobook player

[Hogsbro]

I didn't mind so much that audiobooks were moved from the music player to iBooks, but it turns out that iBooks is a terrible player. At least on my iPhone 6+:

• The skip backward and forward 15 seconds buttons don't work
  
• The player doesn't play in the background for all apps
  
• The player looses it's place
  
• The player doesn't show how far it has played into a track, meaning that returning to a place it lost is very much hit and miss.
  

I listen to a LOT of audiobooks and am so fed ut right now. Does anyone know of another player in the App Store that does a better job? I have searched but not found anything that seems better ...

[Iain1498576215]

Don't forget that there are no longer any titles (Track 1, Track 2, and so on). Plus it doesn't seem to sync play counts back to iTunes, so if, for example, you have a Smart Playlist of Audiobooks that depends on what's been listened to, that's broken.

 

For what it's worth the skip buttons are working for me with an audiobook bought from Audible. It's also remembering the last-played location.

[kirkmc]

I use the Audible app. It's not great, but it's better than iBooks (and better than Music was). Naturally, that only works for books you get from Audible. If you bought them from Apple, you can only listen to them in iBooks now, alas. (Though if you do buy audiobooks from Apple, I strongly recommend getting them from Audible instead. Audible is cheaper, and you can always re-download books you get from them; you can't re-download audiobooks you buy from Apple.)

 

This said, I'll have a look and see if there are any music players that might do a good job with audiobooks that don't have DRM.

[Iain1498576215]

Some in the Apple forums have recommended SpeedUp. I've played with the Lite version a little bit, but not enough to render judgement. It's an old app - i.e. still with the older "squarer" size - which doesn't exactly reassure me. It doesn't seem to work with Audible-purchased books: the cover art appears, but then nothing will play. The app seems to play files fine, but play counts / last played information aren't then recorded when it syncs back with my desktop computer.

[Hogsbro]

Thanks everyone. With your input I got energy enough to keep looking for alternatives to iBooks. The one that I will be trying is SmarterPlayer. It looks clunky but it does the job.

[Solberg]

I had the same problem as you. Today I downloadet "Bookmobile". It's not free, but the best audiobookplayer I ever have tried.

[Hogsbro]

Great tip, thank you. It looks very promising.

[PJ07]

My solution won't help many people, but just in case it helps someone ...

 

I have a copy of my iTunes library on a Synology NAS device. Synology has a free mobile app named DS Audio. It allows me to stream audiobooks from the NAS to my iOS devices. And it displays chapter titles! Maybe other NAS brands offer something similar.

 

Just an option for individuals who have / need a NAS for other reasons ...

[DadofRheba]

Anyone try KyBook? I use it for audiobooks from various sources. It's so-so imo, but I'm using the free version. This will manage both Ebooks and Audiobooks. Give it a try.

[kirkmc]

I've actually gone back to using iBooks, since its faster speed (I generally use 1.25) sounds better than Audible's. I tried Bookmobile, and, while it's got some good features, I had some playback issues. And it's faster speed sounds very bad.

[Carla]

I've given up on using iBooks and just started tagging audiobooks as music in iTunes and using the Music app on my iPhone to play the files. Where iBooks would tell me a file had been played several times (increasing the play count of the currently playing track with every sync) and lose its place in the book and frequently skip chapters, Music seems to be working as expected. Neither is exactly idea, but Music seems to be the superior option for my needs (especially since I don't use Audible at all, ever).

[kirkmc]

Yes, I do use Audible, so iBooks is okay for me. But, if not, then tagging them as music files, creating smart playlists for each book, can make it really easy.