Frustration with iPhone/iPod touch audiobooks ends now: Bookmark is here

October 22, 6:14 PMConsumer Electronics ExaminerJay Siegel

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The iPhone has proven to be an extremely useful device far and away exceeding what many thought it would be capable of, just take a look at the App Store on iTunes to see what we mean.

Today we are going to tell you about an application that essentially addresses one issue, but it does it so well and makes the experience so much simpler that spending the $2.99 to purchase it is an absolute no-brainer. Are we enthusiastic about this app? You bet we are! The app is Bookmark from DockMarket LLC.

We love audiobooks from Audible.com or the Apple iTunes store. Audiobooks on the iPhone/iPod touch are a great combination. You can carry many books with you in your device and listen whenever you have a few spare moments whether it is in the car, a doctor’s waiting room, on a plane or wherever. Sounds good so far, right?

The standard iPhone/iPod touch audiobook application, which is actually just a part of the iPod application, has a few problems. The biggest and most frustrating problem is that the iPod application frequently loses your place in the book. In theory the iPod application is supposed to remember where you left off in the book and start from that point the next time you open the application. That’s the theory; in practice it doesn’t work properly and the iPod constantly loses your place. Compounding that problem is the fact that when you download your audiobook and open it there are lots and lots of little chapters. Good luck remembering which chapter you were in and where you were within that chapter when the iPod lost your place. If you haven’t experienced this yet you will and it is extremely frustrating!

 

These problems are now a thing of the past! The Bookmark application from DockMarket LLC addresses the two biggest issues mentioned above, adds additional functionality, and there are lots of features and enhancements planned for the very near future.

Any audiobook that is synced to the iPhone/iPod touch and opened in the Bookmark application will no longer be made up of dozens of separate chapters; they will all be combined into one file. More importantly; you won’t lose your place anymore. While the Bookmark application is much less likely to lose your place at all, it becomes a non-issue as the application lets you set bookmarks throughout your audiobook. Not only can you set a bookmark whenever you end a listening session, you can also set bookmarks at places you may want to return to at some future time. That’s not all, you can name each individual bookmark and you can write notes for each one. Very handy!

Here are the current feature highlights:

• Unlimited bookmarks with custom titles and notes
• Notes that can include URL’s
• Easier navigation than using the iPod application for audiobooks
• Timeribbon allows skipping around within a book in increments from 30 seconds to 30 minutes
• Share and export bookmarks via email

 

Is the application perfect? No, not yet, but the developer is working on it. Our biggest criticism is that you can’t currently listen to an audiobook in the background while doing another task (perhaps check on an incoming email as you continue listening to your book). As soon as you go to the iPhone home page the book stops playing (when you relaunch the application it continues playing from where you left off).

According to the developer, there are a whole host of planned enhancements for the next couple of version releases. They include:

• Backgrounding; this addresses my above gripe
• Configurable step-back
• At startup, it will jump to the player view for whatever you were last listening to (unless you exited the app while browsing books and with nothing playing)
• Configurable swipe gestures for easier heads-up use. Swiping it left or right will jump by a default of 15 seconds. Swiping up or down will play/pause (in both directions)
• Configurable action when the device is shaken (choices are play/pause, jump back, auto-bookmark, or nothing). We love the auto-bookmark idea.
• Podcasts, available under a separate tab
• Grouping by album name. This is useful when audiobooks are ripped from CD to MP3, resulting in hundreds of tracks. They will be handled as one logical book.

If you listen to audiobooks on your iPhone/iPod touch, Bookmark will change your life. The program will only get better over time, but why wait? Get it now from the Apple iTunes App store for $2.99. It will change your audiobook listening experience forever!