iOS 8.4 Has Ruined listening to audiobooks for People with Learning Disabilities

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Level 1

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iOS 8.4 Has Ruined listening to audiobooks for People with Learning Disabilities

At first, I thought that moving the audiobooks section from iTunes app into iBooks made more sense, until I tried using iBooks today. In the past, I would purchase audiobooks and download them into my iTunes folder. At the same time, I would use iBooks to purchase the same book selection so that I could use my iPad Air to multitask. Basically, I would open my iTunes app on the iPad and select the audiobook and chapter that I wanted to listen too. Then while the audio begins to start, I would also open iBooks and select the chapter to read and follow along. Today, I tried to do the same in iBooks, by selecting an audiobook recording and it started playing like it should, but when I tried selecting the Books catagory to open the book to read along the audiobook stops. It seems that I can only use one category at a time. I also agree with others who had commented that while selecting audiobooks, that the orginal Chapter Titles are no longer shown, but are listed as Track numbers. That's also huge issue that I am having.

I am wondering if anyone had found a fix to my current situation. It seems that now, I have only 2 options for a work around. Option #1, Download my audiobook recordings to an iPod/iPhone and use the iPad to open the book and follow along. Option #2. Use the iPad to listen to the audio-recording and start carring a bulky thick hard copy book. In my opinion, that was one of the major selling points for consumers to purchase an iPad, Tablet, or eReader. It seems that now I have to go out of my way to spend additional funds to accomodate my learning disability. Apple, please move audiobooks back into iTunes.

iPad Air Wi-Fi, Cellular, iOS 8.4

Posted on Jul 12, 2015 5:54 AM

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Answer 1

King_Penguin

Level 10

334,144 points

Jul 12, 2015 6:22 AM in response to vhanaya

There are third-party audiobook apps such as SpeedUp Player Pro, that lets me play audiobooks in the background (it accesses the audiobooks that you've synced to the iBooks app), whilst having a book open in the iBooks app

In terms of moving audiobooks back to the Music app, Apple are not here, these are user-to-user forums, to leave feedback for Apple : http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html or http://www.apple.com/feedback/ibooks_ios.html

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Answer 2

RobR55

Level 1

0 points

Jul 25, 2015 7:22 AM in response to vhanaya

I, too, discovered this issue exactly as you described. Another possible alternative to King Penguin's solution would be to use the Audible app. I simply selected "iTunes" at the top of the screen, and could immediately see all my audiobooks that now reside in iBooks. And, the Audible app now allows you to change the playback speeds of audiobooks sourced from outside the app (previously, you could only do this with Audible audiobooks downloaded directly to the app). Best of all, the Audible app is free! (and no, I don't work for Audible/Amazon. 😉) While either solution will work, I would personally still prefer Apple fix this in iBooks. I can't believe they overlooked what I'm sure is pretty common, to listen and read along.

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Answer 3

AJ397

Level 6

12,907 points

Jul 25, 2015 7:06 PM in response to vhanaya

I'M not sure if this would be beneficial to you or not, but in iOS 8 there is a feature called speak screen. If you enable it you could have the iBook being spoken while also following along in the book. If you prefer audio books, because of the different voices for the characters and such, this probably won't be of much use.If you decide to try it out speak screen can be enabled by settings> general> accessibility > speech and turn speak screen on. Then go into iBooks and swipe down from the top with two fingers.

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