Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Level 1

0 points

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

Best reply

Gedders Author

Level 1

0 points

Posted on Jul 6, 2015 5:13 AM

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.

View in context

92 replies

feizex

Level 1

0 points

Jul 19, 2015 8:04 PM in response to Gedders

@ Gedders

Thanks for your workaround. I think it's good enough for what I need. Much appreciated!

For those that didn't get it, just go to:

iTunes > Books > right click on book and choose Get Info

Options Tab > Media Kind - change AudioBook to Podcast.

BTW, you also need to Sync all Podcasts. Select device > Podcasts

Tick automatically include "all" episodes of "all podcasts". Apply and Sync.

You should now be able to play from podcasts app.

Jul 19, 2015 10:41 PM in response to feizex

The Podcasts app does have more functionality than the current iBooks app (but neither has as much as the Music app used to!): however, remember that the podcasts system in iTunes has a bad habit of randomly deleting files. This has happened to me a number of times, even though I set every prompt I can find to keep episodes, and as a result I no longer set anything I want to keep as an "Media = Podcast" file. Even worse is that the deleted files just disappear, and aren't even moved to the trash, so it's very hard to notice that they've gone until one day you call up a playlist and it turns out to be empty.

So yes, if I had any trust left in the Podcasts app, this would be a good solution, but I've had to restore podcast files from Time Machine too many times, and I simply don't trust Apple to handle those files properly. Apple considers "Media = Podcast" to be disposable, and disposable they may turn out to be, regardless of what the user may want.

Gedders Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 20, 2015 1:10 AM in response to Lost in Asia

@ Lost In Asia & feizex

Agreed.

If anyone chooses to go down the Podcast route, it's a good idea to make sure you have backups of your files (as original audiobook format) before you change them to podcasts. That was the first thing that concerned me before I tried it.

I'd advise anyone doing this to test your methods and settings first, until you're sure you've got complete control. I've only used it for 9 different files so far and it's been working out well for me - so far.

It's not as quick and easy as the old audiobooks format used to be, it's particularly time consuming to alter so many properties of the file and to have to do things like give each unique story its own release date. But, for me and for the time being - so far so good (apart from the lack of unique artwork for each track, but I can grudgingly live with that for now.)

Jul 20, 2015 2:51 PM in response to Gedders

Agreed. Every now and again apple seems to change things just for the sake of changing them. I don't care what app I'm playing them in, but could I at least see the titles? Track #X is about useless.

What kills me is, while I can imagine some cases where it might not matter to someone, I can't picture anyone for whom NOT seeing title would actually improve their experience. It drives me crazy and makes me want to seek third party apps.

feizex

Level 1

0 points

Jul 20, 2015 4:16 PM in response to Gedders

One main drawback of moving to Podcasts is lack of iPod integration as Audiobooks.

My car has iPod integration and I used to be able to choose the Audiobook from the car's central console with them displaying the names on the screen.

But with Podcasts I have to select using the app. I can't use iPod integration to choose a PodCast.

It's kinda ****** if you do, ****** if you don't. If I use as audiobooks, I have car iPod integration and can see the names of Audiobooks (though selecting them doesn't work properly due to noted problems with 8.4). And if I use podcasts, I get my Titles back and can actually select books, but I lose iPod integration for Audiobook selection.

Wake up Apple and fix this MESS!

Jul 21, 2015 1:27 PM in response to Jody Joy

I totally agree!!! I am so frustrated right now. I use audiobuilder too, this is why I've stayed with apple. But now it's all gone to ****. 😟

Jul 23, 2015 1:10 PM in response to mommichief

My car has phone integration also. I use to be able to see my audio dramas & books when they were in the music app so I could select them from the display in the car. Now I have to open iBook, wait for it to load, choose the drama or book I was listening too. Then try to find where I left off. I have to do all of this on my phone so I have to sit in my car for several minutes just to do all of this before I can start driving.

THis his needs to be fixed immediately. I have used Apple products since the Apple Ii computer cam out. I absolutely HATE the changes they have made!!!!

Jul 24, 2015 6:04 AM in response to Gedders

I agree. I could weep for what Apple has done to both Audiobooks and Podcasts. Does anyone at Apple care? I wish someone from Apple would respond with some reassurance.

I used to group my audiobooks into playlists and then sync selective playlists to different devices. I was able to group the books by genre, author and many other characteristics. I did not have to differentiate between books I bought on CD and books that were downloaded from different online vendors - who cares what the original medium was when listening to a book? Now I've lost all my playlists and my hundreds of books are dumped into a single bucket in no particular order. I don't think that it's arrogance on the part of the designers, I think that it's ignorance - they clearly don't understand how people with hundreds of audiobooks manage and listen to books - although I suppose they were arrogant not to bother to find out.

Podcast functionality in iTunes was ruined prior to the audiobooks move. At least my iPhone made me aware that it had moved all my audiobooks to the iBooks app. I didn't even know that there was a Podcast app until I read this thread! I just lost all podcasts from my phone. Fortunately, I still have a click-wheel iPod (the size of a Soviet fridge) that I can use to listen to podcasts and audiobooks ... although the plan when I bought the 128 GB iPhone 6 plus was that I would be able to store all my books and podcasts on the phone and I wouldn't have to carry multiple devices everywhere.

Congratulations Apple, you really are the new Microsoft.

Jul 24, 2015 6:09 AM in response to Gedders

Has anybody tried / heard anything about using Audiobooks with iOS beta 9? I am more than curious to see if any of the issues have been fixed in the public beta that came out a couple fo days ago, but too much of a chicken to try it myself 🙂

Jul 24, 2015 6:10 AM in response to treichert

Oh boy, that is really bad ... and you'd better not change your mind about what you want to listen to during the journey!

lilymae

Level 1

0 points

Jul 24, 2015 6:18 AM in response to swampsnake

I posted several days ago that it does indeed fix the issue. Nice new UI. No one has commented on my info so please put it out there again.

Sent from my iPhone

Jul 24, 2015 6:24 AM in response to lilymae

Thanks! I missed your posted but I'll give the beta a try over the weekend ✅

Gedders Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 24, 2015 9:31 AM in response to swampsnake

Just installed it and configured it (ios 9)....

Absolutely No Change! It's exactly the same audiobook experience as IOS 8.4.

There may be some cosmetic differences, I'm not sure. But I'm still getting "Chaper 1, Chapter 2" - and so on, no chapter names, just numbers. Still no way of telling which part of the audio you're listening to and still no change in the way it displays artwork.

This is just circular. I wish I hadn't installed it now because it's actually quite glitchy and unstable.

Gedders Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 24, 2015 9:33 AM in response to lilymae

How does it fix the audiobook issue? Are you talking about the IOS 9 Beta?

I can't see any difference at all. It's just as frustrating as it was before. 😟

lilymae

Level 1

0 points

Jul 24, 2015 10:14 AM in response to Gedders

UI is different. Swipe book cover left or right to advance or rewind 15 sec...no longer just all part one or two but by chapter. Easier to find your way back if you lose your place.

Sent from my iPhone

IOS 8.4 Has Ruined my Audiobooks & Audio Drama Library