With these apps, use your Android and iOS device to listen to books.
Audiobook apps are incredibly beneficial, efficient and practical for people who merely want to experience more books into their everyday lives anytime and anywhere – at home, on your morning or evening commute, in the car or even while on vacations.
Most of the popular audiobook applications can be accessed on all kinds of platforms, Apple’s iOS, Android gadgets, Windows phones, and Amazon devices.
Audiobook apps are extremely beneficial, efficient and practical for people who simply want to experience more books into their everyday lives anytime and anywhere – at home, on your morning or evening commute, in the car or even whilst on vacations.
To quench your thirst of books, here is a list of top audiobook apps for Android and iOS that can read books for you:
As an application, Scribd is far better known for its printed materials, but since a few years ago, the app has also been known to give readers access to thousands of audiobooks that you can listen to for a cheap monthly fee of $9.
Scribd offers a free one-month trial for prospective subscribers to try the audiobook app. The app is very accessible as it is compatible with Android, iOS, and Amazon devices.
The Scribd Audiobook app is very polished as it is easy to navigate between their e-book selections and their audiobook libraries. Scribd has sleep timers as well; readers can set them so that the app automatically turns off the audiobook after a certain time.
Editors update the libraries every month, so new titles are always available. You can also personalize your use of the Scribd app as it allows you to organize your library to highlight your favorite genres. This Scribd review will give you even more information on the audiobook app, as well as the best titles that are available on their platform.
Notable features of Scribd:
This audiobook app has Amazon as its parent company, so naturally, your Amazon account synchronizes with your Audible app. Audible offers more than 425,000 audiobooks that you can buy, rent, stream online or listen to offline.
Audible is available to all platforms, Android, iOS, Windows phones, and Amazon devices. You can start using the Audible app on a 30-day free trial membership which would give you access to a free audiobook plus 2 additional audible originals.
After the free trial, you can subscribe to the app for $15 a month. Every month, members get an additional three titles each month: free audiobook and 2 audible originals. A subscription in Audible gives a bonus benefit of a 30% discount on all purchased audiobooks.
The app interface is minimalistic and straightforward. You can access the menu and its different tabs on the left side of the screen. Audible allows you to download your audiobooks and listen to them offline.
Notable features of Audible:
This audiobook app is one of the most popular, completely free audiobook applications available today. Founded in 2005, LibriVox is now home to 8,600 audiobooks in which 1,200 of them are recorded in 35 non-English languages.
The app maintains its cost-free status by having thousands of volunteer readers and partnering with Project Gutenberg, for written copies of the books, and with the Internet Archive for hosting the audio files. Since it is public access and no payment is needed, the majority of the audiobooks on LibriVox are classic literature books.
The LibriVox audio book app can be downloaded from the Google Play store and App Store that host the LibriVox libraries like the Audiobooks free app.
The app is straightforward to use since you can only search for the book that you want in the search bar or browse through the available e-book selections in the dropdown menu by using categories such as title, genre, and author. You can also download and access your audiobooks offline in the “Downloaded” option available in the dropdown menu.
Notable features of LibriVox:
You can access the OverDrive audiobook app in over 16,000 community libraries and 10,000 school libraries. OverDrive’s virtual audiobook library is a free service that you can avail of as long as your nearby library is subscribed to the app and you have your own library card.
The app, which caters to both e-books and audiobooks, is accessible in the mobile format in your smartphones and tablets. However, the content of OverDrive’s virtual library can be limited to the books and collections supported in your community and school library.
However, the app also has a feature that lets you find a nearby library where you can access the book that you need. OverDrive has no limits when it comes accessing their books, but you can access more audiobooks after “returning” the ones that you have finished.
It also has very user-friendly features such as bookmarks, notes and position marking system that helps you pick up where you left off in your audiobook.
Notable features of OverDrive:
Google Play Books app is an excellent app that can be accessed on Android as well as on iOS devices. The audiobook app was launched in January 2019 and since then, it allows the users to digest content on through ebooks, textbooks, audiobooks, and comic books.
However, Google Play Book catalog is not as massive s Amazon or Audible, but it certainly has more than the iBooks catalog. The one advantage that comes with the Google Play Book app is that it let the user buy the books one by one, rather than going for the yearly or monthly subscriptions.
Even if you shuffle between iOS and Android device, the app automatically syncs the data. This way, you can continue on your laptop or phone, what you may have left on your browser. Additionally, this app can be connected to the CarPlay and one can listen to his favorite audiobook on the go.
Notable features of Google Play Books:
If you own an iOS compatible device, I don’t think you need any other audiobook other than the Apple Books. It’s a dedicated app for iPad and iPhone and can cater to all the audiobook related needs.
The app was updated in September last year with better library management and access to audiobooks. After the update, the app exhibits the recently listened audiobooks in the Reading Now section and thus it saves you a lot of time looking out for the books.
The best thing about this audiobook is that you can buy the book directly from the app itself and its this feature help it to stand out among other audiobook apps.
Notable features of Apple Books:
Available on iOS
It doesn’t make sense to go for the audiobooks or ebooks if you can directly avail a library. This remarkable app helps the user to manage the content from multiple libraries and for greater use, you can register for more than one library card.
Libby is developed by OverDrive. Once registered, it becomes really effortless to find and borrow an audiobook or ebook from libraries. The apps further allow the user to download the book for the offline use and if the user wishes to save space on its device, he can even go for the streaming.
The app also brings along newly released books and hot bestsellers which are not catered by other similar apps. However, Libby’s database is not as vast as other apps like Audible; still, it’s one of the simplest ways to listen to audiobooks for free.
Notable features of Libby, by OverDrive:
Due to its featured packed app, Amazon has tapped right on the shelf. It’s a popular book-reading app and ranks on the top three apps of the “Books” category.
Interestingly, the Amazon Kindle app doesn’t support the audiobook player, but others way can help the user to listen to books. The app is more directed towards people who are not much inclined towards audiobooks and regularly comes up with books suggestions.
Amazon Kindle offers the user to have a book in two formats. It’s like the user can go for an ebook, and later add an audiobook later. Thanks to its, Whispersync for Voice technology feature, the Amazon Kindle user can switch between reading and listening with ease.
With the option of adding the audiobook companions, the user can add their family members.
Kobo books app is a wonderful source of digital content and especially, after the addition of audiobooks the ebookstore, it has become the one-stop destination for single online ebooks and audiobooks.
The app works almost the same as other popular audiobooks. Besides the shared library, Kobo Books can function as a book reader or an audiobook player.
The design of the app is quite impressive and that makes it easy to use. Its added feature includes the option to slow down or up the book narration and time left to finish the book. Its slider assists in navigating through the book with much ease.
Lately, there have been some bugs reported in the audiobook, but we hope, it will be taken care of soon.
Notable features of Kobo Books:
It’s one of the best audiobook apps to listen to DRM-free (Digital Rights Management) audiobooks. Much like Kobo Books, you can control the speed of narration of an audiobook.
The one feature that makes it worthy enough to be listed in our list of the best audiobook apps is that it comes with a sleep timer. With this feature, the app goes offline after a set time is entered in the app.
For an enhanced listening experience, the mobile app comes with an audio equalizer by which, the user can set the audio output of the book narration.
Notable features of Smart Audiobook Player:
Available on Android
With all these excellent audiobook apps for Android and iOS in our hand, we must; if you are a reader, you need to have such app on your smartphone. Because these apps can aid you with your reading habits while you are on the go and for some, who wish to listen to the audiobooks can also make the most through these apps.
Every app has some or the other great features in their armory, and it all depends upon the user, which features he wants to in the app.
For more insights on the Audiobook apps, you can comment below and put down your query with any added suggestions.
Ariana Johnson is currently covering the mobile app trends and sharing her pinpoint views over the recent mobile app news for MobileAppDaily. Apart from her passion for technology, she also has a thing for cats, and owns a Persian cat named ‘Lilly.’
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