Audible Now Offers Over the Air

Wow. This might be worth looking into...

It does look great and I'm glad they include Palm devices in their OS's, but I don't understand why one has to sign up and join before being able to see what books and magazines they have and at what prices. Doesn't seem right. Sure, they let you 'quit' after 14 days if you want, but who needs the bother of signing up, giving credit card info and then quitting just to see availability and prices?

I have been using this service for 2 weeks. I like the partial book downloads, since I only download what I need. However, I have had an issue with purchasing single subscription items. For example, I purchased an old episode of This American Life. Although it shows up on the web, it doesn't show up on my Treo app. Tech support had only the suggestion that I refresh the application (to which I responded that I am not an idiot). Still, I like the service as it untethers me from syncing to the desktop Audible software (unless of course I want to listen to my download of This American Life).

Is there anything similar available for traditional ebook (ya'know, the ones you read)?

Can you buy an ebook from ereader using blazer for instance?

Andrew,

I logged onto your site this evening specifically to search for information about Audible and found your post. Great timing!

I have purchased a Seidio 2-in-1 headset (from Treonauts) based on your recomendation and I love the ability to switch to the phone and back.

Do you have a recommendation for playing the downloaded books (or music) in the car? I don't have bluetooth in my car. Is there any way to use the car stereo?

Thanks for information.

Judith

Judith - thank you. To play your music or audiobooks in the car I can recommend Seidio's iSound FM Transmitter http://shop.treonauts.com/content/accessories/12-77--282.htm or a 'cassette adapter' if you have a tape player in your car.

Cheers, A.

Jimbo:

I buy all of my e-books using Blazer. You can download the ZIP files to your SD card and open them with an app such as Resco Explorer, but my preferred method is to open the PDB files directly from the links on my Library page on E-Reader. I install them to my SD card, and voila... instant e-book.

Hi Andrew,

A few more questions as I try to take full advantage of the audio capabilities of the Treo in the car:
1. I do have a CD player in my car, but not sure how the cassette adapter works?
2. What do you use to hold/mount your Treo in the car?

Thanks for your great site.

Judith

Dave,

is there a eReader url for mobile devices or are you logging in using the regular URL?

For e-books, Fictionwise.com also works fine from Blazer -- I regularly both buy and download books from Blazer. (I don't know of a particular mobile URL, and the regular site is a little slow over my cellular link, but still entirely usable.)

Ronin,

I just login via the regular URL for my bookshelf @ (https://secure.ereader.com/user/account/bookshelf)

Andrew,

I've been an Audible subscriber for some time and haven't found the subscriptions useful until now. Audible Air is great. However, I too would like to listen in my car. My Treo links to the in-car BT for placing and receiving calls. Is there anyway to make that work to listen to this audio?
thanks!

To the first comment poster - you do not have to sign up to browse audiobooks and see prices. Instead of using the link in this blog, just go to audible.com and browse.

Nice review. I've been on the fence about Audible, but the auto load at night feature is pushing me over the edge to subscribe.

After looking into this, I've found that it is way way way too expensive. $22 a month for something that I might use for 4-5 hours is crazy. I'll do podcasts, thank you very much.

I have a Treo 650 and an Audible.com account. I listen to books all the time and love it. I have a 30 minute commute to work each way and I also walk daily for an hour and a half most days of the week. I have a 1 gig memory card and for walking, use a simple universal handsfree mono earbud with the pushbutton on the mic so I can answer any calls that come in. I used to have a Seido stereo headset with a pushbutton on it, but the thing quit working after a couple of months.

In the car I wanted to listen to the stereo over the car speakers, so I rigged one of those cassette adapters to work with a handsfree headset that has a button on the microphone, similar to the one I use when walking. It's pretty simple if you can use a soldering iron and are at all handy. You won't get true stereo sound using a simple handsfree headset into the cassette, but with audio books, you don't need stereo.
You need a quality cassette adapter that will work with your cassette player. My player rejects the cheap ones. I found one from Creative that worked okay. Belkin might be another good one. I took my cassette adapter apart, disconnected the left and right wires carrying the sound and replaced them with (soldered in) the two-wires from the earbud that I had merely clipped off and thrown away. If you want the sound to come out of both speakers in your car, you will need to bridge a short wire from the left speaker's solder point inside the cassette, over to the right speaker's solder point. I had to lengthen the speaker wire going from the 2.5mm jack into the cassette by soldering in short piece. Now you just plug in and play your audio book. When the phone rings, you push the little button on the mike and answer the call. The book automatically pauses while you take the call. When you hang up, the call continues. I bought the handsfree unit from Target for less than $10 (Sanyo #20487). You might have to pay $20 for the cassette adapter (I got mine free from Audible when I signed up). Stay away from the cassette adapters for Nokia phones. If you don't have a cassette player, you can usually rig an input jack to the auxillary input that's on most stereo players (see the auto stereo stores, Circuit City, Car Toys, etc.).

I am trying to use AudibleAir on my 700p but can't get
it installed (even with the help of audible tech
support). The issue appears to be that I use a Mac as
my desktop machine. The file for download is an .exe
file, useless to a Mac. I asked tech support about a
different way to get AudibleAir and they said if I
downloaded Audible player that it would be included in
that installation. I just did that and no AudibleAir.
I then decided to have a friend download the
AudibleAir installer file for me and see if he could
extract just the .prc/.pdb files I would need and then
e-mail them to me so I could install them on my Mac
but no luck. He couldn't get the .exe folder to work
without having an active palm desktop profile on his
machine. Can someone send me the files or tell me how
to get them somewhere that my Mac can open. Unless
there is something else I have missed. I tried to get
it directly on my treo and they said no way, has to be
installed via hotsync.

While I am at it, I tried to transfer my audible books
over with just the player and iTunes but it said my
Treo needed file format 2 or 3 but I have format 4
downloaded for use on my iPod. Is there a way to
change formats within iTunes or do I need to wait for
AudibleAir to start working for me and just download
them straight to the Treo?

Last question strand, has anyone given up their iPod?
I am considering going to just the Treo if I can get
this glitch worked out. Am I crazy or have folks
found their Treos to be handy audio players?

thanks for any help or wisdom.

Great review and ifno, but what about just using something like mediamaster.com to stream your audiobooks? you cna just upload it their website and access it via mediamaster.com/mobile. Works so far for me. Thanks again!