Audio Book Applications for Ipod And Iphone: What to Choose, What to Lose

Apple sells tons of applications through its iTunes store, including audiobook and eBook apps.

Not all of these apps, however, are worth the cost, space on your iPod, or the effort of learning to use them. Today, I review some of the more popular audiobook apps.

Before I get to my discussion, it is important to note that apps are created by 3rd party developers. Apple provides documentation and coding information, and individuals or companies then create their content. Apple must approve an app before it is for sale through the iTunes store

Rather than list the hundreds of titles, I will lump the single-title audiobooks offered as apps into one category. Each app offers a single downloadable audiobook, usually a public domain title, for a low price. Several of these are free.

Honestly, I would not pay to download a public domain title. Project Gutenberg has free downloadable audio book versions of hundreds of these books. In other words, if it’s free, give it a try. You can always delete it. But don’t pay for something that should be free.

Other audiobook applications that include sets of public domain titles that they term “classics” are available for $0.99-1.99 and allow the user to download titles to the device for playback. As these are public domain titles, why pay?

eBook apps are a similar story. Beware the apps that want you to pay for public domain content. The two best eBook apps, in my opinion, are the Kindle app and the Barnes and Noble app. Both are free and both allow you to browse their eBook stores. Frequently, titles are offered for free as promotions and public domain titles are free. Both apps work very well on iPod touch and iPhone.
The bottom line is this: The best apps are free and don’t pay for content that is already in the public domain and therefore free.

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Tagged as: Audio Book Applications for Ipod And Iphone, eBook Applications, iPod touch and iPhone