Filed under: Freeware, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review
Free access to 1800 audiobooks for iPhone
Your iPhone/iPod touch listening options just got a lot larger. Audiobooks, [App Store] a free app, gives you a large catalog of public domain classic works from Dickens to Verne for your listening pleasure.The books come from the LibriVox library, a non-profit project that has volunteers read the books and then releases the free recordings.
The app is ad-supported, but the ads are not obtrusive in my view. The books I listened to were competently read. Downloading was quick over WiFi,
Downsides are that every chapter starts with disclaimers about the book being in the public domain, which kind of breaks the mood.
The search function works well, but would be better if you could search by genre. There is a nice surprise me button, which gives you a book at random, but in practice that isn't really that helpful.
The developer of this app also sells audiobooks at the iTunes Store, which we have reviewed. These audiobooks show the text synced to the audio, but I do not find that a compelling feature. I think the new app is the way to go.
Here are a few screen grabs:
Gallery: Audiobooks
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
required said 4:28PM on 5-26-2009
I usually just go to http://www.archive.org/details/audio_bookspoetry on my PSP browser for these types of things.
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Tony said 5:15PM on 5-26-2009
Strange - This post is showing up in my feed reader, but it's not showing up on the TUAW homepage...just not there at all.
Also strange - the App Store shows 155 reviews, with an average rating of 3 stars...yet there are a total of only 14 reviews when you try to actually read the reviews. And of those, they're all either 4 or 5 stars except 1, which is 1 star, but the review says "Awesome app! blah, blah, blah...really great! blah blah blah."
Anyway, I downloaded the app and so far it's pretty nice. Downloaded "Art of War"
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msbaylor said 10:49PM on 5-26-2009
iTunes considers Reviews by ranking the app (out of 5 stars) whether you leave a written review or not.
Developer said 6:53PM on 5-26-2009
Contest: where? and who? said the phrase that appears on the video to earn 1 code to download "Join the Dots": http://tinyurl.com/ovkzu9
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Schell said 8:03PM on 5-26-2009
While I give the readers a lot of credit for what they do, but after listening to several Librivox recordings, I am a firm believer in the notion that not everyone has the "talent" to be the voice of an audio book.
I listened to the first Canto of Inferno read by a woman with the most beautiful and haunting English accent, only to be very disappointed when the remaining Cantos were read by someone with a lisp, followed by someone with not an ounce of inflection in their voice.
In the future, I'll either read the book myself, or pay for a professionally done recording.
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Taylor said 9:14PM on 5-26-2009
Mm, this is bound to happen in any situation where you're relying on volunteers solely.
You can't reject some people because they don't have the right voice when you're not PAYING them...
Noob said 6:46AM on 5-27-2009
Yes you can.
Michael Hodges said 12:53AM on 5-27-2009
"Downloading was quick over WiFi, quite a bit slower over 3G, but usable."
funny, I can't download any audiobooks over 3G at all... won't even let me download one that's only 4MB.
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Vic said 1:41AM on 5-27-2009
LOL...that's what my AT&T signal strength usually looks like too.
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Maddy said 3:16AM on 5-27-2009
There is a nice surprise me button, which gives you a book at random, but in practice that isn't really that helpful.
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