Audiobook apps for Apple Watch

[cubodado]

Hi everyone, I started an Audible trial period and I am quite happy about the phone app.
While I appreciate there is a watch app too, it has many limitations:
- books are not synced between phone and watch
- the reading control doesn’t appear on SmartStack unlike what happens with music apps.
- many restarts to read a book using only watch.
- no seamless passage between phone source and watch source if, for example, I go far from the phone while doing chores.

Do you know if these are app or OS limitations? If I buy books on Apple books do I still have them? Is there a subscription app that works better?

Thanks everyone!

 

[meetree]

https://prologue.audio — if you are ready to invest some time and effort in self-hosted Plex and DRM-free books.

 

[meetree]

I had the same experience with Audible on my AW9, and I was even thinking of returning this newly purchased watch as useless for my only goal — untethered audiobook listening (ok, not only one; I use timers, weather, notifications, and Apple Pay; but Apple screwed up the first two in WatchOS 10; it became bearable only in 10.3).

Anyway, Audible was crappy in the previous version when you needed to upload books from the iPhone app (I used it shortly on AW4). And remains the same crap after rewriting it to allow downloads from the watch.

So, I started listening to audiobooks on my phone and then moved to Prologue (this app is brilliant).

I don't have much experience using Prologue on the watch, but this functionality exists. It was introduced around three months ago.

BTW another good option for the self-hosted books is https://github.com/rasmuslos/ShelfPlayer (it works with Audiobookshelf server), but there are no watch app here, at least for now.

 

[ZebraDude]

Interesting....I use audible every day (over the years I have had bought hundreds of books) and I use the Apple Watch 7 or Apple Watch 9 and it works very well for me. My watch picks up seamlessly from where the book was stopped on my iPhone or my other watch. I have a great experience one all three devices.

 

[mk313]

Man, I wish I had ZebraDude's luck, but my experience has been more like cubodado's. It just never works right. I have a pretty large audible collection & I listen to most of my books on there, but am not able to do it on the watch.

For watch based listening, I stick with apple audiobooks. They just tend to be more reliable than any other app I've tried. I'm not sure if the fault lies with apple of with audible, but for me, the Apple Books are just more seamless. It will automatically download some portion of the book (I think 3 hours, but don't recall exactly) and will keep that in sync, so if you listen to 90 minutes of the book, then next time you charge your watch, it will add another 90 minutes to the end of the book, so you always have about 3 hours of it on your watch.

 

[cubodado]

I’ll give you an update on my experience with Audible app.

I could finally start a book on my watch from the point I was listening to it on the watch.

- Start audible app on watch

- On the book list, scroll down and press “refresh” (I had phone connected)

- Started my book and it started from the point it was on my phone.

Wouldn’t mind a widget though since it doesn’t appear while listening, there is no such feature. To recall it only way I found double click on Digital Crown or search for the app on the list.

Hope this helps other people that had my same issue.

Edit: just as I posted this encouraging post, Audible app suddenly stopped on my watch and couldn’t restart it…

 

[meetree]

For watch based listening, I stick with apple audiobooks.

Prices here are pretty steep compared to Audible. Otherwise, I would also stick to Apple Audiobooks.

 

[cubodado]

Update: I ended my trial period on Audible and started on Storytel. I flagged an experimental mode and:

Interaction seems seemless between watch and phone

With watchOS11 now playing appears also for audiobooks and in smart stack (maybe it works also for Audible this now).