Whether going on a vacation or a business trip, traveling includes time waiting at the airport, riding a bus or a train. These moments are great for learning something new or relaxing by listening to a book you don’t usually have time to read.
Frequent travelers find audiobooks especially useful as they add no weight and take up no extra space in a suitcase, yet make the whole trip more pleasant and meaningful.
These apps are suitable for both Android and iOS, and they empower you with having the desired books at your fingertips. They are well designed, easy to use and offer a broad spectrum of options.
Powered by Amazon, Audible remains one of the top apps for audiobooks. Offering more than 150,000 titles, many audio shows and short-form narratives, it is a great option for heavy users. Audible's audiobook player has solid playback features, the narration speed is adjustable, and the downloading option allows you to listen offline. Increasing integration with Amazon's Kindle system is adding benefits for its users, such as switching between audiobook and text effortlessly. The app is free and ad-free. You can buy audiobooks one by one or via subscription costing $14,95 per month.
Not into buying books? Borrow them. Developed by OverDrive, Libby is a next-generation, free application to manage the content you borrow from multiple libraries. Users can sign in, connect their library card, and then get digital media such as ebooks and audiobooks from their local library. You can use multiple library cards, sample books, download or stream content, tag titles, and sync data across devices. Unlike other apps offering free access to audiobooks, Libby is a great way to listen to the newly released bestsellers, not just the classics.
Google Play Books app is a good option for dedicated users of Google services. The audiobook selection of Google Play Store is not as impressive as on Amazon’s Audible, but it’s larger than iBooks. Unlike other audiobook services, Google Play Books doesn't run on a monthly subscription basis. Instead, it allows users to preview audiobooks and then buy what they want. Furthermore, it provides synchronization between connected devices and lets you control audiobooks directly via CarPlay. The app is free.
If you feel like listening to a classic bestseller or want to try if audiobooks are your thing, Librivox is for you. It offers access to more than 15,000 free audiobooks of public domain works which users can search by title, author or genre. Listeners can save and listen to as many books as they want, set an unlimited number of bookmarks, and use a sleep timer. LibriVox is volunteer-powered, so the narration quality may be lower, but it's a great way to enjoy audiobooks without any financial commitments.
Similar to Netflix, Scribd is a subscription-based digital content platform with audiobook offerings. Its subscribers who have access to a library of more than half-a-million ebooks now can enjoy audiobooks too. For one monthly fee starting from $8.99, Scribd offers unlimited downloads from the library of 30,000 titles, access to ebooks as well as articles from newspapers and magazines.
