App Name: Audible for Android by Audible, Inc
Description: Download audio books directly from your Android device. Listen to all your favorite titles wherever you arewithout leaving your phone.
How it works: Audible has finally brought an app for Android so you can listen to your audiobooks. Audible, an Amazon company has over 75k of books to choose from their website at Audible.com. If you don’t already have an Audible account, they give you some excerpts from some books to whet your appetite.
You can buy books individually or you can set up the service with Audible. They have a intro offer of 7.95 a month for first 3 months then 14.95 a month after for the basic package which is credit for one book a month. They do offer a higher option for multiple book credits a month too.
There isn’t a ‘store’ within the app yet to choose the books from so you have to purchase them from the website, but once you refresh your library it will show and then you can download onto your phone.
If you have multiple books you can download them one at a time in a queue or have them download all at once.
The player has 4 tabs at the top and all can be viewed while still listening to your book. The ‘Now Playing’ is the main screen of the player showing the player buttons which consist of a pause button(when playing) a 30 second rewind button and bookmark. But if you pull up on the bottom it reveals 2 rewind buttons to go back to beginning of the chapter or regular rewind and also 2 fast forward buttons to go to next chapter or regular fast forward.
There is also details tab for info about the book, a chapters tab for access to all the chapters and a bookmark tab.
There are several options with the app to share books via Blue-tooth, email, or text or even Twitter for other Audible app users. You can listen button free wher you use gestures on the screen to make bookmarks, play/pause or fast-forward and rewind. You can rate the title and even has a sleep feature.
Opinion: I am a bookphile so this app is a nice app to take advantage of. But I don’t have the money to afford a service like this. So I’m sure I will use it as I can. It would be nice to have the option to buy audio books to listen to but even with the package deal it is a little rich for me. I hope that will change in the future because this app is amazing. The sound is flawless and it has a lot of features to make using it very useful.
Ratings:
- Speed (4/5) – Download speeds are pretty good, but the tabs on the player were slow to load each screen.
- Features (4/5) – Lots. Bookmarks and Sleep feature are favorites of mine. Missing non purchased book support.
- Theme (4/5)- Nicely done UI.
- Overall (4/5) – Great app for books fans. Would be nice to load outside books to this app.
Pro:
- Lots of useful features
- Good sound
- Nice to go between tabs while still listening to book.
Cons:
- Could use a widget
- No non purchased book support
Conclusion: If I could use this for books I get outside of Audible it would be a perfect app. But with lots of features to make the listening experience robust and enjoyable with near perfect sound and no lag on the books as they play make audio books very attractive and accessible right from your phone.