Aldoblog » Technology

Getting the British Harry Potter eBooks and Audiobooks

Alderete — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:09:56 +0000

With the launch of the store at Pottermore.com, it’s now possible to get digital versions of all seven Harry Potter novels.

I own all of the audiobooks twice over, and several of the printed books, but the eBooks represent something new: the chance to read the British version of the novels. Alas, due to insanely complicated—and insanely stupid—international publication rights and restrictions, and my credit card’s USA billing address, the Pottermore.com store did not want to allow me to buy the UK version of the books.

Here’s how I bought them anyway. (You can do the same for the audiobooks, too.)

The basic trick is that I bought a gift for a “friend” who lives in the UK. Buying a gift allows (or in theory requires) you to purchase the edition appropriate for the gift recipient, rather than restricting you to the edition you are allowed to buy. And since your “friend” is redeeming a gift credit, they don’t need to enter a billing address that gets verified (or not) by a credit card transaction.

The only “tricky” part is that you need to have two email addresses, one for you (the buyer) and one for your “friend” (the gift recipient). Many people have a home and a work email, but as long as you have one, it’s not hard to get a second on one of the different webmail services (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.).

The full walk-through of the process is pretty damn tedious, you have to create Pottermore.com accounts for both you and your “friend”, but in the end I turned my $62 American dollars into all seven British edition eBooks, and they work great on my iPad (and well enough on my iPhone). I’m very much looking forward to re-reading the books again, with the Philosopher’s Stone and “colours” and “chips” (fries) and “biscuits” (cookies) and “snogging” (PDA) and all the rest of the wonderful English language in which the books were originally written.

If you’ve wanted to listen to the magnificent Stephen Fry narrated versions of the books, but balked at the £240 price plus international shipping charges from Amazon.com UK, this is your opportunity to save quite a bit of money. To say nothing of instant gratification!

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iPads 1, 2, 3

Alderete — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:47:32 +0000

So I bought a first-generation iPad, Rochelle got an iPad 2 as a “spousal patience” present, and we both got “the new iPad (3rd generation)” when it came out in March.

Obviously if we’re still buying them, we must like them. But, how about some details? What do we use them for? Why is the iPad useful, or cool? Here are a few thoughts, in no particular order:

The retina display is amazing. Truly spectacular. Once you’ve used it, you will find it hard to go back to any other screen. Indeed, I used my original iPad less and less as I got more used to the retina display on my iPhone 4. I am already reading far more than I have in months, due to the crisp perfection of text on the screen. Both Apple’s iBooks and Amazon.com’s Kindle app are great for reading. When I can’t get DRM-free ebooks I tend to shop at Amazon.com first, simply for the selection, even though I probably prefer the UI for iBooks, marginally.

It’s not just text that’s spectacular on the screen, either. I’ve…uh, checked out some of the comic book apps on the new screen, and it’s pretty much as good as holding a printed book. Spectacular. I’ve only used the Comics app from comiXology and the Dark Horse Comics app, but both have really delivered incredible on-screen quality.
The original iPad was really heavy, for a device you’re going to hold in a reading or viewing position for long stretches of time. Reading a book, watching a movie, browsing the web—all great “lean back” activities on the iPad, but the weight, it was a killer. The new iPad is a little heavier than the iPad 2, but quite a bit less weight than the original. It’s still not light enough, but it’s an improvement.
The new iPad does not get hot. No matter what you’ve read. It does get slightly warmer in a particular spot than the earlier models, but barely. You have to want to feel it to notice it.
The new iPad does indeed take almost twice as long to charge. On the one hand, the battery has almost twice the capacity, so this is not a surprise. On the other hand, it’s a genuine limitation, in that it becomes much more important to remember to plug it in to charge overnight if you’re planning on using it heavily the next day.
I used two iPads during March Madness, using the March Madness On Demand app to watch three games at once. The quality of the video, if not as good as my HDTV, was as good as my old standard definition TV set. Kind of amazing.
The Netflix app is even better than that. Damn near HDTV quality. The combination of Netflix streaming for under $10/month and an iPad may let you kiss a $100+/month cable bill goodbye. (We haven’t subscribed to cable in 4+ years.) That’ll pay for an iPad right there, in less than a year.
Rochelle is the master of replacing cable with iPad apps to watch her shows. Here’s a list to the apps she uses regularly:
- Netflix
- Hulu Plus ($8/month, worth it)
- NBC
- ABC Player
- The CW
- TNT
When we want to watch something that’s not available from those services (Justified, The Walking Dead), it’s not hard to justify renting or purchasing in the iTunes Store, given that we don’t spend anything on cable. Not available there, either? Patience is a virtue…we wait for it to be on Netflix’s regular old disc service.

So, nutshell, worth it? As an upgrade from the original iPad, absolutely. The first generation iPad was interesting, even compelling as a vision of the future of computing, but for most people, I think it was easy to say “I’m going to wait for the version where they work out the bugs”.

That wait is over. I don’t know what will come in future generations of the iPad, beyond more processing power and more storage, but this third-generation hardware is “fully baked”. The high definition screen delivers an experience that you do have to see and touch to fully appreciate, but once you do, you’ll want it, too.

Aldoblog Redesign In-Progress

Alderete — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 20:06:39 +0000

After a very long run with a customized Kubrick WordPress theme, I’ve finally gotten around to upgrading to a more modern theme, built on the Thesis Theme for WordPress. The visual design is currently pretty Spartan, I hope to dramatically improve that in the not-too-distant future. For now, the new theme improves the foundation of the site, and makes ongoing changes easier.

I plan to follow the visual refresh up with a refresh of most of the content in Aldo on Audiobooks. Look for the first updates over the weekend.

Hopefully with these monkeys off my back, I’ll get back to more frequent blog posts. We’ll see!

Three Reasons to Not Change the Behavior of the iPhone Ring/Silent Switch

Alderete — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:16:00 +0000

Been a bit of a brouhaha recently about the behavior of the iPhone’s ring/silent switch, kicked off by an article in the New York Times. John Gruber, Andy Ihnatko, and Marco Arment have weighed in, and covered most of the ground for and against, but here’s three specific thoughts I haven’t read elsewhere:

The iPhone’s silent switch has behaved the way it does for 4½ years, and we’re only now having this conversation? Because some guy got a brand new iPhone and embarrassed himself at the symphony the same day? And people want to change the behavior because of one (well-publicized) incident of user error? Seriously?

There’s no better indication that the behavior should remain the same than the fact that we’re only now discussing it.
Flipping the ring/silent switch is a casual act. You can do it without looking at your phone. You can do it without even taking it out of your pocket. You can do it unintentionally, digging something out of that same pocket.

Setting an alarm is a deliberate act. I defy anyone to do it while their iPhone is still in their pocket. I defy anyone to do it accidentally. If you forget you have an alarm set after going through the process of setting it, and get embarrassed at the symphony, shame on you.
If you think the ring/silent switch should override an alarm you have set, causing it to not make sound, there’s an easy way to do that: don’t use the built-in Clock app. Many third-party alarm apps respect the ring/silent switch. I like Night Stand. It’s pretty, and when silent mode is enabled, it vibrates but doesn’t ring. Solve your problem for 99¢ and move on.

On Sale at Audible: Takeshi Kovacs Trilogy

Alderete — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 19:29:52 +0000

Only for the next two days, and only for Audible.com members, but the deal is so good, I feel compelled to share this collection of three hard-edged science fiction novels, Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies. I really enjoyed all three novels, and hope the author will return to the Envoy universe and write more of Kovacs’s story.

All three novels, unabridged, 55+ hours of audiobook, for $25 — less than $9 per novel, under 50¢ per hour! (Even when the sale ends on June 14th, this bundle will still be a nice deal.)

Audiobook Builder 1.5

Alderete — Mon, 30 May 2011 23:42:10 +0000

My recommended solution for creating digital audiobooks from CDs, Audiobook Builder, has recently been updated, and comes with a new feature for renaming the chapters in an audiobook:

I don’t know that I’d want to use this on every book, but for those without interesting or meaningful chapter names (or if you’re just not as anal retentive as I am), this can be a nice time savings to make your chapter titles look neat and regular. This is especially useful if you’re creating a separate track for every chapter, and want to keep chapters in the right order. (I recommend a different approach, but it’s up to you.)

Other new features include additional metadata support, something that’s very welcome. All in all, a great update — and free to registered users!

Free download of Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Alderete — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 04:11:20 +0000

For a limited time, you can download a free audiobook of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden read by Mel Foster. This is the commercial version of the book, which retails for $23-33.

The unabridged audiobook is provided as MP3 files, which you can simply drag into iTunes, and then sync to your iPod or iPhone for listening. You can change their Media Kind to have iTunes treat them as audiobook tracks, or with a little more work, you can convert them to a single audiobook file.

Note: If you don’t already have one, you will need to create an account on Tantor Media’s site, which will sign you up for their newsletter where, among other things, you can learn about future free downloads.

“Just a Big iPod Touch”

Alderete — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 22:23:34 +0000

When the iPad debuted, the witticism was that it was “just a big iPod touch.” This week Motorola echoed this by saying it’s “like a giant iPhone.”

This is about as stupid as saying a swimming pool is like a giant bathtub.

I’ll be the first to suggest that two people in a bathtub can be a lot of fun, but you’re not going to play Marco Polo or do a swan dive into even the biggest McMansion whirlpool tub. Sometimes size does matter.

The 9.7" screen size of the iPad is not an accident, Apple did extensive testing to arrive at that size. Below that, you either have to make the user interface too small to use with normal fingers, or it really is just a big smartphone.

The 7" screens coming with the Samsung Galaxy and other would-be iPad competitors are only 45% of the size of the iPad’s 9.7" screen, and that makes a difference for most kinds of applications. Look at a side-by-side size comparison of a Galaxy to an iPad to get an idea of that difference. The 7" screens have a wide screen aspect ratio, which makes them great for watching widescreen movies, but that’s about the only use where they are equivalent to the iPad.

By the end of 2011, “Like a Giant iPhone” will be in the same class as CmdrTaco’s legendary “No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.” assessment of the original iPod.

Which iPod Should I Buy, 2010 Edition

Alderete — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:22:13 +0000

Two years in the making, or just two years late. At long last I’ve updated the article describing recommended devices for listening to audiobooks:

Which iPod Should I Buy for Listening to Audiobooks

Hopefully this will be useful to you during your holiday shopping! (And come back for my Recommended Audiobooks when you find a new toy under the tree for yourself, that’s getting a huge update soon.)

App Review: Audible Audiobook Player

Alderete — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:13:43 +0000

If you search the App Store for “audiobook” you turn up hundreds of results, most of which are crap. (More on that in a future post.) Separating the wheat from the chaff can be a challenge. Aldo on Audiobooks will only bother to review worthwhile apps.

My favorite source for audiobooks is Audible.com, an online service offering over 85,000 digital downloads of audiobooks and other spoken word content (more here). This summer Audible released the Audible audio player app, dedicated to playing Audible content and interacting with the Audible.com service directly, without requiring the use of a computer or iTunes. The app is free, but requires the use of an Audible.com account.

The short version of this review is, if you’re an Audible customer with an iOS device, getting this free app is a no-brainer. It’s intuitive and optimized for audiobooks, it plays in the background just like the built-in iPod app, it adds useful features not in the built-in iPod app, and its design is clean, simple, tasteful. I’ve used it exclusively for audiobooks for the last four months, and it’s a great replacement for the iPod app. I plan to continue using it indefinitely. I still use the iPod app for podcasts and non-Audible audiobooks, and regularly miss Audible app features.

The Audible app has three major functions:

Browse and search your Audible library.

In addition to book title, you can browse content by author and by recent activity (purchase, download, playback). Searches can be on author, title, narrator, or all three. If you have a lot of audiobooks, you will realize immediately how big an improvement this is over the built-in iPod app. I normally keep 30-40 titles on my iPhone, but I have more than 275 titles in my Audible library (I’ve been a customer for 7 years). The new ways to browse are a godsend.
Download titles to your iPhone (or iPod Touch, or any iOS device).

The Audible app allows you to download audiobooks directly to your device, without needing to connect to your computer. (You do need to be connected to a Wi-Fi network, as virtually any audiobook will be greater than the 10 megabyte limit for 3G downloads.) Browse to an item, and tap the download button, it couldn’t be easier. This is a fantastic feature for people who have difficulty getting iTunes to sync the way they want it to, and it’s great for making last-minute decisions about what to listen to, without needing to break out your laptop.
Play your audiobooks.

The app features a slew of specialized navigation controls that are specific to longer, linear spoken word content, including a no-look mode for controlling playback while driving. Particularly useful features include a “skip back 30 seconds button” that is larger than in the iPod app, dedicated chapter navigation buttons, an integrated sleep timer, and the ability to create bookmarks at any point in a recording. Overall, audiobook playback is easier and more obvious than with the iPod app.

Other Features

The app additionally includes a number of smaller features worth noting. There is a news tab, with notes about upcoming releases, insider notes, author appearances, awards, and other audiobook news. A stats tab shows you various statistics about your listening habits, and even allows you to earn badges for specific behaviors, like binge listening, listening all night, and so on. You can bookmark specific spots in a recording and take notes on it, much like you can with the Bookmark app I reviewed previously. And there are various things you can email or post to Twitter or Facebook, if you want to share with others. Finally, the shop tab serves as a launch pad for switching to the Safari browser and accessing the mobile-optimized version of the Audible.com web site.

I won’t bore you with additional details; if you want to see more, Audible has written a very good user manual for the app, which you can download in PDF format. (This is more useful than built-in help, since if you don’t have an Audible.com account, you can’t really play with the app directly.) Don’t let the manual intimidate you; it is almost entirely unnecessary, because the app is so intuitive, differing from the iPod app only in ways that make sense for the purpose of the app.

Notes and Limitations

Content downloaded inside the Audible app is not added to your on-board iPod library, or synced back to iTunes, but is instead stored in the app’s data storage area. If you want the content in iTunes, you’ll have to download it separately, on your computer.
The app can play Audible content from your standard iTunes library, that you sync to your device as usual using iTunes, but it is treated as a slightly second class citizen, losing the ability to skip to built-in chapter marks. This doesn’t have to be a big deal, but it’s irritating. And when you combine this with the first issue, the two distinct libraries have the potential to create a collection management problem down the line.
In the four months I’ve used it, the app has crashed on me a few times, over multiple versions. But, it has never lost my place in a book or a download. Just restart the app, and continue where you were.
I’ve noticed issues with author names not always being properly grouped. For example, I found my Michael Connelly books in three groups, and my Lois McMaster Bujold titles in seven different groups. This looks like minor whitespace or spelling discrepancies in the Audible data. These are not problems with the app per se, but rather with the audiobook database and metadata on the Audible.com site. There were also occasional encoding issues on foreign names, e.g., Per Wahlöö & Maj Sjöwall, and this probably is an app issue.
Shopping in the store is a bit awkward, involving a swap out to Safari, where you browse a version of the web site optimized for mobile devices. (I suspect this is a limitation due to Apple’s terms for selling in the iTunes Store.) On the mobile version of the site, I can’t access the My Next Listen queue, which is where I personally store my “real” wish list. (The wish list, which is accessible, is where I keep my “maybe someday” list.) You can switch to the full site, and it’s usable in mobile Safari. Minor awkwardness aside, it is useful to be able to make purchases from your phone.

Summary

Version Reviewed: v1.3, released September 20th, 2010

If you are an Audible.com customer and have an iPhone or iPod Touch, get this app right now. You will end up loving it. It makes downloading and listening to your Audible content easier, even to the point of cutting your computer out of the loop.

Pluses:

Integrated, soup-to-nuts experience for Audible content.
Terrific controls and user interface for audiobooks.
News, stats and badges are fun.

Minuses:

Audible only.
Separation of app audiobooks library and standard iTunes library.
Minor glitches.

More Information:

Audible player in the App Store
Audible app web page
Audible mobile apps web page (for Blackberry & Android)

Editorial Note

The Audible app is free, but the Audible.com service is not. I pay for my Audible subscription myself. I have added affiliate links to products mentioned in this review, but only after writing the review. Affiliate relationships have not affected the content of this review in any way.