IOS 8.4 Has Ruined my Audiobooks & Audio Drama Library

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IOS 8.4 Has Ruined my Audiobooks & Audio Drama Library

I'll try to keep to the point here, you don't want my life story, but perhaps my listening habits and content will help to explain my issue.

So far, I seem to be part of the minority, hopefully more people will speak up about this.

I've never had any issues with the audiobooks section in the iTunes library or on any of my iPhone's or iPods. Now, having just installed IOS 8.4 on my iPhone, Apple seem to have left me out in the cold - with no way back.

I have no issue with migrating Audiobooks from the music app to the books app, it seems to work OK, that is for a single audiobook with a single title.

The trouble is, that more than half of my huge Audiobook library consists of Full Cast, Episodic Audio Drama Series', that is - a series of stories with its own title and own artwork contained within an all encompassing Series Title. Now that's been blown to bits, I have no idea which story I'm listening to. I have spent years, months, weeks and hours carefully organising my audiobook library. Each story title within a series (or album if you like) has been replaced with the generic title "Chapter X", not only that, it's using the same artwork for each story. 😟

I Was perfectly happy classifying my full cast audio drama/comedy/thriller/horror/sci-fi as "Audiobook" before, with all the benefits it allowed. What am I supposed to do now?

My carefully curated audio drama series' are now not one thing or another as far as iTunes is concerned. They're not music, not books, not audiobooks, not film or TV.

What was the point of changing this? I don't really care, my audiobooks were happy and I was happy with the way things were, it worked fine. Yes it now has a sleep timer - so what? The iPhone & iPad already have that built into the pull-up menu.

So now it seems that I'll have to re-categorise all of my audio dramas as "Music"! Is that really the only thing I can do?

Did Apple not think about this issue before building this update? Do Apple consider several or many different ideas before they go ahead with things like this, or is everything decided and implemented with just one, final, narrow point of view? This seems like a step backwards, not an improvement.

Most importantly, are Apple going to address this issue and fix it?

How about giving us, the consumers more choice and flexibility?

What this update has done is to make my audio library on my iPhone resemble the absolute shambles that my friend with an Android phone has to struggle with on a daily basis.

iPhone 5s, iOS 8.4, null

Posted on Jul 6, 2015 1:35 AM

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Answer 1

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Gedders Author

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Jul 6, 2015 5:13 AM in response to Gedders

This just gets worse...

After giving this a lot of thought, I decided, for the time being to just suck it up and deal with it as best I can.

Imagine you have 100 TV episodes from the same series - say for example 'Star Trek TNG'. The Series is called 'Star Trek - The Next Generation' and each of the 100 episodes that you own has its own title, series number and episode number. It makes sense for iTunes to group all of the episodes and series' under the same general series title, with each episode having its own number and particular title. But, your iPhone or iPad doesn't have room for the 300 gigabytes, for example to load all of the episodes. So what do you do? You connect your device to iTunes and only tick the episodes you want for the time being.

But...

What if Apple decide to update your device with a new app called 'TV Shows' and then after migrating all of your TV shows to the new app - removes all of the episode numbers and titles? You're then left with a list of random, untitled episodes on your device. Would that be convenient?

That was an example...

Now, that is exactly what has happened to all of my full-cast audio dramatizations. They all have their own title and episode number and they all belong to a particular series. This worked very well with the old system for audiobooks, being integrated into the Music app. Each episode has lost its title and artwork when I try to play it back on my iPhone through the new iBooks Audiobook integration. I have no idea what I'm listening to; and I can't find what I want.

So...

My workaround solution to this was to re-categorize all 1000+ audio drama episodes (all with their own album name as a series name) as music.

This Doesn't Work!

It's the whole album/series - or nothing!

Some albums (formerly audio dramas classed as audiobook) have over 200 episodes, each 1-3 hours long. iTunes will only let me add The Entire album/series - which takes my device well over capacity. I don't have time to give each episode it's own album name - neither do I want 1000's of random titles scattered throughout my music library.

It was much easier and quicker when they were audiobooks within the music app, I would connect my device, find the series title and then check the episodes that I wanted. The only option available to me now is to add one episode at a time...

What If I'm out driving all day? What if I'm away for a few weeks?

Apple - Please FIX this - you haven't thought it through properly!

I don't want to have to spend far too much time editing my entire library (I've already spent years doing that); and I don't want to have to spend time scrolling through 1000's of tracks just to pick out the few that I want on my device.

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Answer 2

Jul 6, 2015 11:47 AM in response to Gedders

Just want to add a big ME TOO!!

I hope that Apple to notice these boards and will take some notice. I too have ripped a complete audio series (in my case all the Sherlock Holmes radio dramas) from CD and used Audiobook Builder to create a series of stories under one title - Sherlock Holmes. Now, just like you I have a Sherlock Holmes title in my library and 100+ "Track Number xxx" listed as the chapters which is completely pointless. Also when a CD had a couple of episodes on it I have seen that the 15second "skip"button works fine for the first episode (or chapter) but not at all for the second. This is probably something to do with the conversion program not playing nice with the new playback system, but IT USED TO WORK, so please put it back!!!

You have described the issue much better than I ever could. Have you tried submitting a bug report direct to Apple? OK, they won't reply but that way the issue is properly recorded.

I have tried just about all of the Audiobook Playing apps in the store. Some of them appear to work by importing the tracks from the library and then playing them internally in the App. These will list the track titles properly (which shows it can be done!) but as they don't updated the play count of the Audiobook in iTunes after syncing I have to go back into the library and manually mark episodes as played.

If Apple had just split the Audiobook function out of Music and not tried to integrate it with iBooks it might have worked better, but then look what happened with the Podcast app....

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Answer 3

Gedders Author

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Jul 9, 2015 12:24 AM in response to swampsnake

I'Ve been trying to find a workaround for this for days now, with no luck.

the best solution so far is to have my audio plays classified as music and then create playlists. It's not ideal as I'd rather not have my non music content in the music section of my library.

You mentioned 3rd party apps from the App Store?

Which one would you say it the best and recommend I use? I don't mind about play counts I just want the classic audiobook and library experience back, along with individual series, chapter/episode titles and individual artwork for each track.

thanks in advance.

Gedders

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Answer 4

feizex

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Jul 9, 2015 9:20 PM in response to Gedders

+1 ... I can't believe how bad it is!

I noted before updating my iphone that this update moved audiobooks from iTunes to iBooks. I thought big deal - they will present the same. WRONG!!!

They need to fix this to make it have the same hierarchy as was in iTunes Music App. IE:

GROUPS > Books (m4b files) > Chapters.

At the moment they have flattened that into:

GROUPS > Chapters

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! ARGH!!!

How am I supposed to know which BOOK (separate m4b file) I am listening to???

And worse than that they just NUMBER every chapter as "Title 1", "Title 2" etc. WHERE ARE THE CHAPTER NAMES???

HOPELESS!

Not to mention inability to skip forward or back to next Book or next Chapter.

What were they thinking? Oh right! They weren't thinking at all!!!!

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Answer 5

Jul 9, 2015 10:45 PM in response to feizex

I agree wholeheartedly, the whole update is my biggest regret. 80 % of my usage is audiobooks and kids stories for my kids, which were perfectly working before the update, now all I have in the "fairytale" folder is ; track 1 track 2 etc.

I also was able to tell before the update how much of each track had been listened to, which now is a thing of the past, infact any track I previously had on , will now start off from the beginning again. Argh, I wish there was a way to revert back to 8.3

I hope that this will be addressed in the next update.

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Answer 6

Jul 9, 2015 11:38 PM in response to techluvver

Two HUGE annoyances:

it no longer remembers playback position, but starts at the beginning of the title every time you open it
it's impossible to remember where you left off on your own because the chapter titles are all gone, just "track 1, track 2," etc.

I know that Apple is pushing everything else aside in favor of becoming the king of music. If I apologize for not signing up for Apple Music, will they fix my audiobook listening experience? Hmm, I wonder how my audiobooks would do in the Audible app?

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Answer 7

Jul 10, 2015 9:31 AM in response to Gedders

similarly frustrated - loss of playlists, no all my files are out of order; lack of remembering playback position etc.

I've logged feedback about it but I have no idea if hat was worthwhile.

to really irritate me, it doesn't seem to work with the carplay - which is a big requirement for me. constantly crashed.

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Answer 8

sara7272

Level 1

4 points

Jul 10, 2015 10:03 AM in response to Gedders

It's terrible. I LOVED listening to my audiobooks, and had spent a lot of time titling everything, which is now all wiped out and just "Track 1", etc. If I change it to music, iCloud doesn't recognize it and won't put it on my phone... which is the goal.

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Answer 9

Jul 10, 2015 3:09 PM in response to sara7272

AAnother band aid fix which may work for some people is downloading iTunes U and changing type to this format. This will let you skip and also keep track titles. Only thing I havent figured out yet is how to get seamless play ( automatically going from track to track )

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Answer 10

Jul 10, 2015 7:57 PM in response to Gedders

Well these a-holes at apple have become more arrogant than the a-holes at Microsoft, and I didn't think that was possible. Apparently apple has decided that audio book listeners are not worthy of any consideration so they just balled our "songs" up and dumped them into a big pile. What possible reason could there have been to do that other than just pure arrogance and a complete disregard for the audio book users of their products. I've owned 2 iPod nanos and 2 iPhones and now it's time to move on to something else. Screw you apple!

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Answer 11

Gedders Author

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Jul 11, 2015 3:12 AM in response to Gedders

After several days of trying to figure out a workaround for this issue, I've think I may have found something to solve this issue.

I Found an app called Book Mower.

Its not absolutely perfect, the interface is new and unfamiliar but, I only installed it about 20 minutes ago - and so far, so good.

it's certainly not as easy and straightforward as the old Apple audiobooks experience Music>More>Audiobooks>Book Titles>Chapters

However, this app seems to do a fair job of restoring the old, familiar audiobook organisation and playback. There are quite a few settings and options to deal with as well as getting used to the new style interface, but it basically produces the same results that we're familiar with.

It doesn't rename any titles or chapters, it keeps them exactly as you organised them yourself. I need to play around with it a bit more, because so far I'm having trouble finding a Skip button or gesture, however, tracks are manually selectable from a side bar.

So basically, you just carry on as before, add your audiobooks from your audiobook library to your device, they'll be dumped into the dreaded iBooks app, but you can ignore that. Then just open the Book Mower app and + the title(s) of your choice to the app library, then you'll find them there, with original chapter titles and artwork - just like before.

I need to spend more time playing around with the app and I'll report back with any new info and my experiences with it.

For or the time being, I'd say it's worth trying until Apple fix their audiobook screw-up, if they ever do.

If anyone does try this, let me know what you think and if there is an even better app than this.

I'm hoping this is going to solve my particular issues and that I can get back to using my non-music audio library in an easy hassle free way. It doesn't change the fact that I'd rather not have to use this, I'd much rather Apple put things back the way they were. If it's not broken why fix it?

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Answer 12

Gedders Author

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Jul 11, 2015 5:33 AM in response to Gedders

Book Mower is NOT as great as I originally thought.

Sadly, like iBooks, it still seems to insist on using the same artwork for all the Different stories that actually have their own artwork, rather than using the artwork that goes with that particular story or chapter contained within a group/album/folder of books. 😟

The settings are really fiddly, in fact it takes a lot of work just to get to the preferences. So far, I haven't been able to fix this issue. Still, at least it keeps the original chapter title names. It may seem like a little niggle, but I actually found it useful being able to see what was playing with a split second glance at the artwork.

It's also a trial app, it only lets you add 2 books at a time - or else (here in the UK) pay £2.99 to unlock the app limit.

It's also a bit glitchy, I added a test book this morning and then deleted it from my iPhone completely, yet it's still showing up in the list of books, then when I select it - it tells me that there is no content to play! 😕

I'm not much further on than I was after the update. At this rate, I may well end up going back to my 6 year old iPod for listening to non music content. 😠

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Answer 13

Jul 11, 2015 11:51 AM in response to Gedders

This is the first time in my 25 years as an Apple user that I have been absolutely infuriated with their changes. They have completely ruined iTunes. Apple used to be user focused. Not sure what the focus is now but they surely didn't think about how audiobook users use iTunes. I have changed the media type for all my books to music. At least the iTunes app will remember where I was in the book. I am hoping that someone comes to their senses and either fixes the iBook app or puts it back in ITunes.

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Answer 14

lilymae

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Jul 11, 2015 7:59 PM in response to Curt Whittaker

I Really could reply to everyone on this post who is disgusted with iBooks in 8.4. I made the grave mistake of upgrading my 6Plus to 8.4, and have had to put it away in a drawer because my audiobooks are no longer usable. I am using an older model iPhone because I guess Cookie and Co. dont think us lovers of literature are Hollywood enough so they've put any effort into our software on the back burner. My issues: it takes the iBooks app 70-75 seconds just to load my books!!!!! Seriously? Then once they do show up (very little art, mind you) none of the controls work for at least another 20 seconds. I listen to books all day long and would rather listen on an old iPod with an Android phone...at least I can hear my books when I want to!

Maybe Cookie and Co. should be less interested in pushing their social agenda on the world and focus on the task at hand...

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Answer 15

Jul 12, 2015 8:09 AM in response to lilymae

Cookie and Co wouldnt let me post this:

I am unable to purchase books after the new update to iTunes this week. I am unsure if they are related, however, I have never been directed to contact Support before when trying to purchase books or music. And, yes, there are enough funds in my account. I have already tried changing my password, tried the purchase on another devise, and restarting both devices. My next option is to start using Nook for my book selections, as I completely switched to digital books when ibooks came out, so a significant amount of business will be lost along with that of all of my friends, family and anyone else that I can tell in order to get my point across that gross neglect of tech support's power hungry theory that they will have us beholdn to them is misguided and probably has Steve Jobs haunting their dreams as this is NOT his user friendly vision for Apple. You are forgetting your vision, Apple! I have been a MacHead since the '80s when Jobs was going head to head with MickySofts CEO, so I do know the history...maybe you need a refresher in your own history.

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