Are you looking for some particular apps to listen to audiobooks? This will be a good post for you. Some people may worry about the extra time for reading and listening audiobooks, so here is an app that can solve these problems. With this app, you don’t worry about too many audiobook files, too little storage space, or money. Plus, it has some other conveniences. In this blog post, I will introduce some of them.
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Best Apps For Listening To Audiobooks
- Audible (Android, iOS: $17.95/month)
best audiobooks audible
(Image credit: Amazon)
Audible remains the powerhouse among the best audiobooks apps, with more than 470,000 titles in its library — especially now that it’s owned by Amazon. Audible’s audiobook player offers solid playback features, with chapter navigation, bookmarks, a sleep mode, variable playback speed and multitasking support for background playback and downloading.
Audible’s integration with Amazon has added many benefits. Amazon Prime members who sign up at Audible.com get two free credits when they start an Audible Premium Plus trial. Amazon’s Whispersync feature allows users to switch between audiobook and text near-seamlessly. You can even have Amazon’s Alexa pull up your audiobooks from Audible to be read through an Echo, Tap or Echo Dot.
Download Audible: Android, iOS
- Audiobooks.com (Android, iOS: $14.95/month)
Best audiobook apps: audiobooks.com
(Image credit: RB Audiobooks USA)
RB Audiobooks’ cloud-based Audiobooks.com platform also is a solid choice among the best audiobook apps for Android and iOS listeners, allowing subscribers to choose from a library of more than 200,000 audiobooks from every genre that they can stream or download for offline listening.
The Audio Books app includes variable playback speed, automatic bookmarking and a sleep timer, among other features. Additionally, this app includes cross-device syncing, allowing listeners to easily transition from their smartphone, tablet or computer without losing their place in the audiobook.
Download Audiobooks.com: Android, iOS
- Realm (Android, iOS: Free)
best audiobook apps: realm
(Image credit: Serial Box)
The best audiobook app formerly known as Serial Box has a new name — Realm — but the same appeal to anyone who likes listening to a good story. Listeners can enjoy shorter, episodic content through Realm, which offers bite-sized chunks of novels that are perfect for your commute or breaktime.
Realm features a range of genres from drama to fantasy and sci-fi. You can listen to a lot of shows for free, but paying for an unlimited membership removes ads, enables the ability to listen or read and unlocks exclusive deals. An annual membership breaks down to $2.49 per month.
With a strong library of offerings such as “The Witch Who Came In From The Cold”, “Bookburners” and “Tremontaine” and a highly configurable reader and audiobook player mode, Real is an interesting new option for readers and audiobook listeners alike, especially now that there’s an Android version of the app available.
Download Real: Android, iOS
- Google Play Books (Android, iOS: Free)
Best audiobook apps: Google Play Books
(Image credit: Google)
Google Play Books also builds in audiobook features, allowing you to listen to your purchased audiobooks across platforms and devices. That enables listeners to pick up where they left off on their Android device, iPhone, or desktop PC. Audiobook controls allow you to skip ahead or scroll along the timeline, jump to chapters, and configure playback speed and a snooze timer.
Unlike others in our list of best audiobook apps, Google Play Books doesn’t run on a monthly subscription, instead allowing users to preview audiobooks and then buy what they want over the Google Play Books marketplace.
Download Google Play Books: Android, iOS
- Kobo Books (Android, iOS: Free)
Best audiobook apps: Kobo Books
(Image credit: Kobo Books)
While Kobo may not have the same big name recall of Amazon in the US ebooks and audiobooks market, it offers a rich library of ebooks and audiobooks in its online marketplace and reader apps. Kobo’s audiobook player covers your basics, with a timeline scrubber bar, timeskip buttons, chapter navigation, playback speed configuration and a snooze timer.
The Kobo app provides cross-platform syncing and a customizable ebook reader in addition to the audiobook player. New users can sign up for a $5 discount on their first ebook purchase.
Download Kobo: Android, iOS
- Bookmobile (iOS: $3.99)
Best audiobook apps: Bookmobile
(Image credit: Freshmowed Software)
Bookmobile is a well-regarded iOS Audiobook player for those looking to play DRM-free audiobooks. Bookmobile supports DRM-locked content from iTunes and Audible, as well as DRM-free content ripped from CDs or downloaded, including M4B and MP3 audiobooks. The app features a thoughtful control scheme designed to keep you from easily losing your place and includes drive and sleep modes, as well as supporting background playback.
Extra features include a custom bookmarking feature that can automatically remember where you last stopped, playback speed controls, and AirPlay support. The free trial lasts for 60 days and allows you to import three audiobooks. After that, it’s $.399 to unlock the whole library.
Download Bookmobile: iOS
- Smart AudioBook Player (Android: $1.99)
Best audiobook apps: Smart AudioBook Player
(Image credit: Alex Kravchenko)
If you’re looking to listen to DRM-free audiobooks already in your collection, Smart AudioBook Player is a popular choice for Android devices that comes with a good selection of features, such as variable playback speed, bookmarking, an audio equalizer, some basic collection management features, a sleep timer and control widgets for the notification tray and your home screen. The app provides users with a generous 30-day free trial before asking for a $1.99 unlock.
Download Smart AudioBook Player: Android
- Listen Audiobook Player (Android: $1.99)
Best audiobook apps: Listen Audibook Player
(Image credit: Acme-Android)
Another of the best audiobook apps for DRM-free titles on Android is Listen Audiobook Player, formerly known as Akimbo. Ad and IAP-free, Listen is a highly configurable player that includes variable playback speed, a built-in equalizer, sleep timer, embedded chapter support, bookmarks, lock screen controls, and widgets.
Users can sync their current position and bookmarks across multiple devices, configure skip times, UI colors, and configure headset button shortcuts.
Download Listen Audiobook Player: Android
- Voice Audiobook Player (Android: Free)
Best audiobook apps: Voice Audiobook Player
(Image credit: Paul Woitaschek)
If you’re not looking to spend a cent on apps — best audiobook players or otherwise — you can always go with free and open source options. Voice Audiobook Player has a clean, Material design-based interface that delivers some useful playback features without charing you a thing.
Library management is a simple, folder-based affair, and playback options include variable playback speed, bookmarks and a sleep timer. It’s comparatively basic next to others on our list of best audiobook apps, but you also can’t argue with that price.
Download Voice Audiobook Player: Android
- Nook Audiobooks (Android, iOS: Free)
Best audiobook apps: Nook Audiobooks app
(Image credit: Barnes & Noble)
Barnes & Noble offers the Nook Audiobooks app, with a store library of more than 50,000 titles across a variety of genres. Rather than use a subscription model like Audible or Audiobooks.com, Nook features an online store where users can buy individual books, and then download and listen to them through the app.
Best app for audio books free
- Audible
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Audible is the most used audiobook app available. The app is owned by Amazon, so it has all compatible books available in the Amazon Kindle store.
This app features books of different categories including business, thriller, horror, romance, religion, fantasy, and science fiction amongst others. You’re sure to find what you’re looking for and notably, it features all Amazon best sellers.
With Audible, you can play and listen to books anywhere you are and from any device. It doesn’t matter if you download a book from your mobile phone or PC, your library is automatically synced on all your devices.
The audio being read on this app is professionally performed. It makes a story come alive like you’re watching it on TV. The app has speed up and slow down features and either can be adjusted to 3x the normal speed.
There’s the skip or back by 30 seconds feature which makes navigation a lot easier. Furthermore, the app has a sleep timer.
Audible has premium plans, but there’s a collection of free audiobooks that you can download and listen to. These free books include new releases, classics, and bestsellers.
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- Hoopla
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Hoopla is another free audiobook app on our list. Not only can you stream audiobooks with the app, but you can also stream music and videos. The app is completely free to use and signing up is hassle-free too.
This app features a public library with hundreds of thousands of audiobooks and other content. New content is added daily so there’s always more to stream. Plus, you can download audiobooks to play them later.
The Hoopla library works in the form of a lending platform. You’re borrowing the audiobooks you download or stream and once you’re done listening, the content will be automatically removed.
Nevertheless, with Hoopla, you’re not limited to just audiobooks on the app. You can also load your own content from your mobile phone, PC, or smart TV to play as well.
You can download the Hoopla app on your smartphones. It’s available on their respective app stores. It’s also available on Amazon and Chromecast.
A con of this free audiobook app is that most of the content in the library is licensed to Canada and the United States only.
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- Loyal Books
Owned by Twist Idea LLC, this is a free audiobook app with a very simple user interface. It was developed to make reading fun for users and the developers believe books should be free.
The app allows you to create a local reading library on your device from thousands of free audiobooks. Loyal Books features fiction, mysteries, and kids books, amongst others.
Notably, there are over 7,000 free audiobooks available in this app. You have the option of streaming the audiobooks directly or downloading them to play offline.
Each book features reviews and ratings so you’ll know the quality ones. Featured books are displayed on your dashboard to show you the ideal content you should read. Similarly, the app features a top charts section where you can view the trending books globally or in individual categories.
For convenience, the Loyal Books app has an adjustable playback speed. Also, the book featured in the library can be translated into 25 different languages.
This app can be downloaded on iPhones, Android, iPads, and Tablets. The only con is that the app features ads, but you can pay to remove them.
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- LibriVox
LibriVox is described as a platform with free domain audiobooks. These books were written by authors from different parts of the world and they are free for anyone, anywhere to listen to.
The app is a very interesting one. Authors can publish books for readers to help proofread/listen. Also, anyone can design the book covers or create audio m4b files for ebooks.
Generally, anyone can contribute which makes the app one of the best for engagement. There’s an online forum where readers and authors can communicate via posts and comments.
This free audiobook app has more than 15,000 audiobooks. Out of the lot, about 8,000 are novels, non-fiction stories, and poetry. Furthermore, the app has recorded over 11,000 readers since it was first launched.
LibriVox features close to 2,000 non-English content. Likewise, the majority of audiobooks in the library can be converted to 45 different languages.
As a reader, you can sort the audiobooks library by author, genre, language, or title. Also, you can simply search for any audiobook by entering a keyword. LibriVox is free but there’s also a pro version of the app.
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- OverDrive
This app lets you read, listen, and enjoy audiobooks all for free. Apart from audiobooks, the app also features movies and TV shows.
OverDrive features best-selling books, classics, new releases, and more. The audio player has easy navigation features for easy use. This includes fast forward or rewind by 15 seconds, previous, next, etc.
Also, you can adjust the speed settings of the audiobooks. It can be adjusted to 2x or 5x of the normal playback speed. There’s a quick menu from which you can easily access all the app features like the bookshelf and bookmarks.
You can customize the app’s appearance including the font, contrast, and margins. Also, you can switch the app display between light and dark modes from the playing screen.
The mobile app can be downloaded on Android and iOS devices and all audiobooks you download sync across all your devices.
Also, OverDrive features a desktop app that you can use for free as well. Notably, you can use the desktop app to burn audiobooks to CDs or any other device.
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- Sora
Sora is an audiobook app developed by the same developers as OverDrive. The app was mainly developed for students and it has some very interesting features.
With Sora, you can read audiobooks with just a tap. The app keeps track of your reading statistics. You can easily check how many books you’ve read and your reading time amongst others.
The app enables you to borrow books from different public libraries. You earn achievement badges the more you read audiobooks with the app and use its other features.
The audiobook player featured in this app is a very intuitive one. It features adjustable playback speeds and a timer. You can easily move forward or backward by swiping on the book covers.
As you read, you can add books you find interesting to your bookmarks and make notes and highlights from the texts/words. The app has professional narrations for novels and other select titles.
Sora can be used by schools to assign class books and other texts to readers. The app is not just available for mobile devices but also available for laptops, desktops, tablets, and chrome books.
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- Libby
Here’s another free audiobook app from the OverDrive developers. Libby is a relatively renowned audiobook app. It’s used by top platforms including BuzzFeed, Lifehacker, Forbes, Reader’s Digest, and Popular Science amongst others. It was named the best free app of 2019 by PC Magazine.
This app is very easy to use and suitable for any reader. It supports offline reading/listening as you can download audiobooks. Also, you can read across different devices as your content is synced in a cloud platform.
Libby has a library with thousands of audiobooks ready to be played. You can browse the library to find an ideal book or use the featured and curated content lists. There’s also a catalog guide to assist you.
The audiobook player has intuitive features including the 3x adjustable playback speed and swipes to skip forward/backward. Additionally, you can set a sleep timer.
To use Libby, you just need a library card from your library. The app is one of the simplest ways of listening to audiobooks.
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- Google Play
Apps, games, music, and movies are not the only things you can access on Google Play. You can also access audiobooks and you don’t pay to use the platform. However, Google Play can only be used by Android users.
Unfortunately, Google Play also features premium audiobooks. However, there are lots of free audiobooks on fiction and nonfiction and notably, Google Play features free audiobooks from Nightfire. Both online and offline playing modes are supported.
You can easily locate free audiobooks on the Google Play app as they are grouped exclusively. All you need to do is to navigate to the Audiobooks category. Furthermore, you can easily add an audiobook to your library and share it with others.
Google Play is a widely used platform so one advantage you get from using this app is the reviews. Hundreds of users drop reviews after listening and you can use these as insights to know if an audiobook is worth listening to or not.
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