Can I speed up audio books?

If you have an iPod Touch or iPhone, you have a double speed option there (as well as a 0.5x option). iTunes doesn't have that feature, but if you're determined to do so, you could use QuickTime 7 Player. I personally find the lack of integration sufficiently annoying that I wouldn't dream of using QuickTime 7 Player. But, if you're determined to do it:

1. If you don't have QuickTime 7 Player, get it. If you've got a pre Snow Leopard (pre 10.6) version of the OS, you can download it from http://www.apple.com/quicktime . If you've got Snow Leopard, QuickTime X (mystifyingly) doesn't have AV controls, but you can get download QuickTime 7 Player for Snow Leopard here or find an article about finding it on your OS DVD here).
   
2. And even then, to play in QuickTime 7, you have to control-click on the song in iTunes, select "Show in Finder", and then in Finder, control-click on the audiobook track, and select "Open With" > "QuickTime 7 Player".
   
3. Once you have it open in QuickTime 7 Player, you can then go to "Window" > "Show A/V Controls", and control the speed there (between 0.5x and 3x).

Personally, I just listen on my iPhone, so I've got 2x speed for books and podcasts, which is great. I don't understand why Apple doesn't offer that feature in iTunes, and, worse, why they took this great feature out of QuickTime X.

Message was edited by: Rob Ryan

(edit)
Sadly, not with iTunes directly.

It can easily be done with QuickTime Player & AppleScript.
Open the Script Editor.
Paste the following in and save the script as *Speed up playback* to username\Library\iTunes\Scripts\ folder

tell application "iTunes"
pause
set my_track to location of current track
set my_seconds to player position
end tell

tell application "QuickTime Player"
open my_track
set my_movie to first movie
set ts to time scale of my_movie
set current time of my_movie to my_seconds * ts
set rate of my_movie to 1.5 -- starts playing
-- set this to the speed you want to playback at. 1.0 = normal
end tell

Select the book in iTunes then go to the AppleScript menu and select the new script you created.

(from -> Mac OS X Hints - Listen to podcasts at 1.5x speed

go to your home screen and tap on the music icon. select one of your audio books and then tap the center of your screen. just under the right side of the scrubber bar and directly under the remaining time indicator, you should see a little box with 1/2X, 1X or 2X. tap that box until is shows 2X.

J GG

For a variety of reasons, that script didn't work for me in Snow Leopard & iTunes 9.1. This is a variation on the idea that did, though:

tell application "iTunes"
pause
set my_track to location of selection
set my_seconds to bookmark of selection
end tell

tell application "QuickTime Player"
open my_track
set my_movie to first document
set current time of my_movie to my_seconds
set rate of my_movie to 1.5
end tell

I saved that in the folder ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts and now I have a way to play stuff faster right from iTunes (admittedly, firing up QT, but now a single keystroke from iTunes does the job for me). Chris, thanks for pointing me in the right direction here.

By the way, it has to be a book or podcast. If for some reason, it's in your library as music, just change the "media kind" to book and you should be good.