Comments on: iPhone 2.0 and iPhone 3G

By: Al

Al — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 04:52:39 +0000

Yep, I am having the same problem. I am not sure if it depends on the size of the book. More discussion here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7846114 Unfortunately, no response from Apple. More than that, I was not able to find a way to submit a request to their technical support!

By: pka

pka — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:17:50 +0000

I have the same trouble as Sue. Large audiobook files will no longer play after upgrading to the 2.0 software. When you select an audiobook from the menu, it appears to go to play mode, but in a second or so, the audiobook menu is displayed. It seems to have something to do with the length of the file.

Others are having the issue, too. See this link (although there seems to be some confusion over a separate DRM issue):

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7598255

By: Alderete

Alderete — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:09:13 +0000

@Sue: I know of no problems playing back audiobooks on iPhones with the 2.0 software. I have an original iPhone, upgraded to the new software, and both Audible.com and Audiobook Builder audiobooks (with tracks as long as 12 hours) have played just fine. My wife has an iPhone 3G, and has likewise had no issues playing back audiobooks (she listens to more than I do).

Where are you encountering others who are having the problem? Do you have more specifics about any of the tracks that won’t play back? When you write “will not play at all,” what exactly happens when you select one of these tracks and press the play button?

And, uh, I assume you mean that the tracks played fine on the 1.1.4 release of the iPhone firmware? (There was no “1.4” version of the iPhone.)

By: Sue

Sue — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:37:26 +0000

How are your long audiobooks with 2.0 software? Mine over 3 hours something will not play at all. They were fine on the old 1.4. There are a number of people raising this issue, but apple don’t seem to be listening.

By: Alderete

Alderete — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:50:22 +0000

@Kamran: It’s very early days for the iPhone App Store. While there are several hundred applications available today, I suspect that’s a small percentage of the applications either submitted to Apple (and not yet published), or in development. So, while there’s no third-party audiobook playback applications available today, it’s far too early to tell what the final story here will be.

That said, it seems extremely unlikely that any third-party is going to try to compete with Apple’s already very good iPod software that runs on the iPhone. While there are many, many flaws with it, particularly for us audiobook aficionados, it’s still outstanding, and represents a huge amount of work. Even taking out the features for music playback, and concentrating exclusively on audiobook playback features, I would guess that a quality solution would still require a very serious (high five or low six figures) development effort. With the prospect of competing with Apple, the developer would have to be someone who did not expect or need to make back their investment in direct App Store sales.

That’s not as crazy as it sounds. For example, I could see Amazon.com doing something like this, through their Audible.com subsidiary. They would never make the investment back in application sales, but they could easily make it back in promotion, awareness, and thus increased audiobook sales. The more I sit here and think about it, the more I think it’s a great idea for Amazon.

This is kind of like how Apple (publicly) talks about iTunes music sales; they (say they) make their real money on iPods, not on music. The difference would be Apple makes money on the razors (iPods), while Amazon/Audible makes money on the blades (audiobooks).

Anyway, for now, we’re going to have to make due with the built-in iPod application which, while not perfect, does play back audiobooks quite well.

By: Kamran

Kamran — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:36:15 +0000

I wrote to you a long time ago (back in Dec 07) regarding comparing the capabilities of different audio book players such as the Cowon A2 and Creative Zen Vision (especially in regards to their superior bookmarking functionality).

I just got my iPhone 3g and was wondering whether you’ve discovered a third party audiobook application that might have a better bookmarking feature compared to what we have as default. The Cowon and Creative can do multiple bookmarks per audiobook (such as per chapter) and the ability to bookmark your place on the fly and pause after a couple of seconds. This way, when you start the book after a gap (say 1 or 2 days), you have a couple of seconds to re-orient yourself with the current situation before moving on.

I hope a third party app can address this issue.