It doesn’t matter if you do not have the time to sit and read a book, nowadays, an alternative method is rapidly gaining popularity, namely, listening to audiobooks. What is amazing is, they can now be enjoyed even using smartphones! Techspirited has compiled a list of the best applications that guide you in the best way to listen to audiobooks from your mobile phone.
Did You Know?
With an app known as Whispersync for Voice, readers of an ebook on theirKindle and listeners of an audiobook from Audible, can seamlessly integrate the two experiences by picking up on any of the two at the very same point that they left off while reading on the other.
Who does not love to be read to? Right from adolescents to adults, everyone has always warmed up to the idea of having something read out. Kids love to hear bedtime stories before turning in for the night and occasionally so do adults, just so that they can enjoy the prose even without physically reading it. The audiobook industry has gained quite a bit of momentum in recent years. A lot of people want to listen to their favorite books while completing otherwise dull tasks like driving or working out.
Audiobooks have a special file format, different from the standard MP3, which again varies depending on the source of the audiobook. This makes it quite tricky as it requires to move them across gadgets. However, in this era of smartphones, naturally, avid fans of audiobooks would want a solution to listen to their favorite books on the go. And they wouldn’t like to carry yet another device. Here is Buzzle’s list of the best apps you can download to help you listen to your favorite audiobooks from anywhere, directly from your phone.
The Favorite, by Default…
The Audible app, developed by Audible Inc., (a subsidiary of Amazon Inc.), is available for each and every platform, right from mobile (iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile) and tablet (iPad, Kindle) to PC (Windows, Mac), yet this is not why we and thousands of users worldwide, consider it to be the most obvious choice of audiobook app.
It is favored over a number of other similar apps and services because:
- The app lets users directly download audiobooks from the Audible website, the largest library of audiobooks in the United States of America and exclusive supplier of audiobooks to Amazon as well as to iTunes.
- It allows users to manage their audiobooks in a very systematic manner. Audiobooks can be segregated according to source (direct download or from your device’s iTunes library). While listening to one, users can effortlessly move back and forth between pages, chapters, and bookmarks.
- Users can avail of features such as the ability to alter the speed of narration and listen to an audiobook on the go, while it downloads.
- The app, itself, is available free of cost for download.
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Other Awesome Apps for Listening to Audiobooks
Audiobooks
An audiobook player that can also play podcasts, this app gives users access to a library of thousands of audiobooks for free. This enables them to hear the content when the download is taking place as well as after it is complete. Users can also avail of useful features like automatic bookmarking and a sleep timer. It also runs in the background, allowing users to multitask.
There is also a premium version that costs USD 0.99, which, additionally, lets users listen to a number of premium, professionally-narrated titles in audiobook format.
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OverDrive Media Console
On downloading this free app, users can access audiobooks, ebooks, and video streams from over 22,000 libraries around the world. With so many participating institutions, all that one needs is a valid membership with any one of them, to help them use this fantastic app. The beauty of this app is that audiobook titles can be “borrowed” rather than purchased, which will automatically be “returned” once you are done with them.
Other amazing features include the fact that audiobooks are downloaded in MP3 format. The app includes an audio player in which speed and volume of the narration can be altered as per the users’ convenience.
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Smart AudioBook Player
A dedicated audiobook player, this app is a boon for owners of Android devices. Especially, for those who love audiobooks and possess a number of titles from different sources, it acts as a one-stop solution for playing different audiobook file formats.
Some of the unique and attractive features of this app are
- Users can control narration speed and volume
- Automatic pausing of playback if the listener falls asleep
- Allows users to jump between books, bookmarking the point at which they left off
- Classifies audiobooks based on whether they are new, ongoing, or have been completed.
The premium version is available free for the first month, after which, users can access limited features unless they purchase the app for USD 2.
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vBookz
Exclusively for users of devices running on iOS, this phenomenal app gives users access to a vast library of around 30,000 classics in audiobook format. It also has the ability to read ebooks and even documents aloud, that too, in languages other than English.
Another innovative feature is a magnifying glass icon that moves along with the text that is read out. It allows users to drag it to a different point in the ebook to resume from where they had left off. Users can download unlimited books and have them read out; however, it costs USD 4.99 to download.
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Reading is said to be equivalent to allowing your mind to breathe. Thanks to technological innovation, the brilliance of literature is now available to even those who cannot physically read, whether it is due to lack of time, visual impairment, or any other reason. We should take advantage of these amazing alternative channels to derive the essence of the best texts in the world, thus enabling our smartphones to read out our favorite books to us.