Playlists for Audio Books in iBooks

Bardfilm, that does seem like an awful lot of faffing on! Have you considered simply doing it the way I suggested earlier? In iTunes, select a book in a series and rename the title by giving it a a common prefix and number. For example

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone becomes HP1 - Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone,

Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban becomes HP2 - Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban

iBooks definitely then stores them in the correct order. I suppose if you wanted them to PLAY concurrently you could make them 1/34, 2/34 etc (the HP books break down into LOTs of parts!). Whereas in the old Music app you could put all the separate books in a series in a playlists to get them to play concurrently. I haven't tried that with iBooks just yet as sadly my iphone has just broken, but it might be worth checking out.

I have also used the "sorting" option similarly within iTunes. So the Harry Potters are just HP1, HP2, HP3 etc, but the I also have a sorting category for autobiographies, biographies too so that within that category they are alphabetical, but at least I don't have to remember what someone's autobiography is called to find it, I know they'll all stack at the top of the book list.

It is a bit tedious coming up with a prefix for books, but sometimes I use the name of the main character eg Dresden 1, Dresden 2; or I abbreviate a common part of the title eg Ladies of Letters go......" becomes LOL1 - Ladies of Letters go..."

What I HAVE enjoyed about the iBooks app is that you can see the chapters again, which you used to be able to do in the Music app, but then they stopped! It makes moving around the book easier than tilting your finger to move along the scrubber, to move backwards and forwards more than 15 seconds!

Overall, I'm now over my complaints of the iBooks, except that it still peeves that they are separate apps, but the functionality I can use in the iBooks IS better than listening to audiobooks in the old Music app imho

Rowena

Thanks, Rowena. No, that didn't work for me. My Harry Potter files are called HPOP01, HPOP02, et cetera, but iBooks plays them as if they were shuffled unless the track order is set in iTunes before putting them on the iDevice. The same is true for longer files: Shakespeare on Silver Street 01, Shakespeare on Silver Street 02, Shakespeare on Silver Street 03, are not treated as consecutive tracks under the title "Shakespeare on Silver Street" unless the track order is set as I outlined in my response above.

Just as a side note, when I download books to iTunes, I always join the CD tracks—so I don't have thirty tracks for HPOP01 . . . just the one file. That makes it easier for me to keep track of things.

Thanks!

—Bardfilm

Thanks, David Stone1. Yes, I've submitted it there, but I hold out absolutely no hope. I've tried to get them to allow Podcasts to be played in their Music app since they made that change—I used to have great smart playlists that had all my podcasts sorted from shortest to longest, and I could listen to them all without having to change from one podcast to the other (endangering myself and other drivers when trying to switch in the car, by the way . . . perhaps a lawsuit would get their attention). Now the horrific Podcast app is the only option.

In any case, I've been trying to get them to change that one since the change was made—with absolutely no luck, no response, and no way to rate the app.

But thanks for the suggestion!

—Bardfilm

Hmm. "Join the tracks"???? I'm not sure I understand. My Harry Potter books were actually ripped from the CD's, I think with some of them they made a new "track" every minute, so I have HUNDREDS of tracks!!! I'd be very interested to learn what you mean by join them so they show as one track?!!!!!

Rowena

Thanks, Rowena. Here's how.

Insert a CD and wait for it to load in iTunes. Then select all the tracks. Click on "Options" and pull down to "Join CD Tracks." iTunes will when show a connection between all the selected tracks. When you then click "Import CD," it will import the CD as one file. It's a great way to manage books on tape . . . or albums like Abbey Road, where the B side of the LP is essentially one track!

—Bardfilm

Cool! But can this be done retrospectively? I ripped the CD's years ago, would rather not have to do it again, just to have them appear as one track!!!

R

Alas, no. It cannot be done with files that are already imported. But you can start now and work your way forward with all your future audio books!

—Bardfilm

I have experienced the same problem and till apple fixes the problem I have used the BOOKMOBILE app and it works very well and saves my place for my audio books. You can add existing audio books from your iphone and was pretty easy to use. Hopefully this issue will be resolved soon.

Hi,

I found exactly this problem too. I didn't really like the way any of the third party apps worked, particularly having to load in books, so I made my own, called "Audiobook Browser"!

It has taken a while to get it through app review etc, but it is now available: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/gb/app/audiobook-browser-free/id1020961830?mt=8 Please do check it out and let me know what you think. It is a simple app for browsing audiobooks already in your media library by playlist, genre, auther or album and also for playing them and seeing the individual chapter titles. The free (ad supported) version is available now, and there is a paid version still coming through app review that has no ads. If you have feedback, let me know.

Yes, you CAN join tracks from a ripped CD retrospectively. Just use the script "Join Together," which is available from Doug's Applescripts for iTunessite. It works beautifully, it's updated regularly, and it's shareware.

I'll look into that bnachison, thank you!

One of my playlists is showing up in ibooks as a 'collection" ... I just don't know how it got there and how to create other "collections" of the playlists that I want. Any ideas?

Weird! Mine are all in a folder called "audiobooks". I wonder if it has something to do with the "genre" that you have them in, in iTunes? I remember going through all my audiobooks some time ago and making sure they all had "audiobooks" as the genre as some of them download with all sorts of alternatives like "spoken word" or "book" or whatever.

Anyway, having had a quick look, at the top of the screen where it says audiobooks (for me) or collection (? for you?), if you tap that, you get a dropdown menu with other options (I have some ebooks and pdf's viewable in ibooks too, which I can opt to see via this list), but at the bottom is +New Collection.... which I think answers your question!!! 🙂

I buy a LOT of books every year. In order to remember what I have not yet heard, I put books into different playlists based on the order in which I want to listen to them. After i listen I revise the playlist and remove them.

The contents of the playlists that I have chosen to sync all show up under "Audiobooks" but they are no longer in my discreet playlists or collections ... they are just all "there." I would love to have my individual playlists translate into "collections" automatically instead of my having to re-create them once I'm inside ibooks.

Hi,

I found exactly this problem too. I didn't really like the way any of the third party apps worked, particularly having to load in books, so I made my own, called "Audiobook Browser"!

It has taken a while to get it through app review etc, but it is now available: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/gb/app/audiobook-browser-free/id1020961830?mt=8 Please do check it out and let me know what you think. It is a simple app for browsing audiobooks already in your media library by playlist, genre, author or album and also for playing them and seeing the individual chapter titles. There is a free (ad supported) version and there is a paid version that has no ads. If you have feedback, let me know.