Audiobooks on Logos - I really want to love them....
I LOVE LOVE LOVE audiobooks and primary use Audible on my iPhone. I also love Logos Bible Software for studying the Bible and reading religious themed ebooks.
I discovered that I REALLY love listening to an audiobook while also reading the same book on Logos. It helps me stay focus but it also allows me to highlight and read along.
I started buying my audiobooks on Logos since I love Logos and want to support the platform. I also assume that eventually Logos will support something similar to Amazon's "Whisper Sync" technology, so owning both the audiobook and ebook on Logos will benefit me in the future.
but….
The Logos Audiobook portion of the mobile app is TERRIBLE! Is there any way to download and play these audiobooks using a different or standard audiobook player?
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You can't use other apps as you can't log into them using your Logos ID and they are not connected to the Logos servers to determine what resources you are licensed to access.
Although it would be nice, I wouldn't assume Logos will support something to Amazon's Whisper sync technology.
Also, I could assume, but more importantly the Logos developers could assume what you mean by the Logos mobile app audiobook function being TERRIBLE! but what would be more helpful is giving some specific ideas points about what you mean. Are there bugs you are experiencing with the product? Or are you refereeing to design changs / new functionality?
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I was frustrated with the audiobook interface almost a decade ago. It's undergone only minor improvements since then. I put in a request for slower playback speed, which never went anywhere… so I strongly agree with the OP
Here's a suggestion I dropped ages ago:
0.75x is too slow, and who the heck wants to listen at 2x or 3x…
This is just for starters. The interface in general is also a piece of work that needs improvement.
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Specifically I would like more options for speeds: right now it goes from 1.0 to 1.4, which is way too fast for me. Can you throw in 1.2, and 1.3 please? Thanks!
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@Simon’s Brother , Here is a list of a few things that make the audiobook experience terrible on Logos (in no specific order):
- No Tab for the "Audiobook". It's just a slideover that gets in the way if I'm not listening to the audio book. If I swipe it away to read something on that tab, there is no easy way to bring it back up to start listening again.
- No Sleep timer
- Lack of Speed Adjustments. We should be able to pick anything from .5x to 3.5x (yes, I know people who listen that fast)
- Lack of granularity in Speed Adjustments
- Frequent Crashing
- When I click the "pause/play" button on my headphones, nothing happens, when I click it a second time, then it actually pauses.
- No Bookmarking or saving a clip
- No ability to create a note or anchor a note to a specific portion of the audio/text.'
- No ability to adjust the skip forward/back time (it's stuck on 30 seconds)
- Doesn't play nice with CarPlay
- Chapters are usually all wrong
@Br Damien-Joseph OSB , I just looked at my iOS app and it allows .5x and .75x, so at some point they must have added that functionality. Kind of…. It's still not very granular.
@Carmen Gauvin-O'Donnell , I agree that granularity is needed. I listen to most things at 2x - 2.25x but I'm have a unique ability to do that. My doctor says it's my ADHD that causes me to be able to focus on audio much better than anything visually (like traditional reading). However, there have been some authors that talk so slow I find myself wishing I could speed it up even more than 2.5x. Additionally, I've found that many authors talk so fast that I need to slow it down a little but 1.75 feels way too slow for me so I wish I could do 1.9x.
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I very often listen in Audible and .8 .9 1.1 and 1.2 just because narrators are so variable in their reading speed. Being able to do that in Logos audio would be a great help.
Also, I am one of those people who read a Kindle ebook while using whispersync to listen to it at the same time. While I appreciate the ability to have the app read books which have no audio book, the computer voice is TOO fast and can only be slowed down to .75 which is too slow, and while I am able to choose another voice, all of them are awful . There have been vast improvements in recent years to voice reading in apps. Changing speed, a less computer sounding voice, and just better reading, such as pausing at periods and commas would make a world of difference.
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I want to reiterate how really really BAD the computer narration of the ebooks is. If Logos could access and use the Apple provided API for reading, it would change everything. Even kindle computer narration is vastly superior to what Logos is using. The Logos narration is using 10 year old technology. The rest of the world has moved on with significant improvements which makes the Logos ebook reading completely unacceptable.
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One more comment:
Human narrated books are vastly superior to the computer narration in Logos (though Apple and Kindle computer reading is not awful, so much better than Logos).
If Logos can't/won't improve their computer narration, offering human narration for resources is helpful, and I would gladly buy the audio version of the resource to listen to as I read the ebook in logos. I've purchased a good number of audio books to go with the ebook resources but sadly not very many are offered. Personally, I prefer human reading, but an improvement to the computer reading would long term be cheaper and easier for getting audio into so many of your resources.
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@John Kaess I completely agree with all of your points.
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@Simon’s Brother , you said: "Although it would be nice, I wouldn't assume Logos will support something to Amazon's Whisper sync technology."
You are right, I shouldn't assume but…. Logos is leading the way with Biblical AI, and I don't think it's a huge leap to imagine using AI to essentially build the "whispersync" technology. I'm not a software developer, but I bet you can teach an AI how to listen to an audiobook and sync it up with the paper book pretty nicely. As AI rapidly progresses, I think it will become a super simple process for Logos to do that and seemingly overnight add that technology to their platform.
So… we can't assume, but we can hope.
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Thank Chuck for sharing your ideas. These would be good, and I agree we can hope but I also keep that hope in perspective. Logos doesn't have the resources behind them that Amazon has been able to pour into the development of the Audible app.
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Sadly, I agree with you. I currently buy books in Logos and audiobooks in Audible or another location. Then I play in Audible while reading in Logos.
AI should totally be able to make a whishper-sync-style page turner work.
Even better, AI is able to actually read your book to you quite well. My current practice often is to copy book to clipbloard, paste into ChatGPT, launch advanced voice mode, and then have GPT read the book to me as I flip throug on Logos. What's great about this is I can have it summarize sections, I can ask questions, and I can have it skip to next chapter etc. As Logos is pushing into AI, it would be amazing (and probably the lowest hanging fruit of AI integration) to have advanced voice to at least read the book and even better to have audio LLM to interact with the text (though i know that's probably a bit further away).
I think Logos is perfectly situated to better integrate all kinds of audio tools (audiobook and more) into their apps. This would make subscription very worthwhile.Jacob Hantla
Pastor/Elder, Grace Bible Church
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I have been listening to audio-books on Audible and lately have encountered some AI generated (narrated, not written) titles which are really really good. They are setting the bar much higher now than it has ever been in the past.
Amazon/Audible is going all-in on AI narrated content.
Audible unveils plans to use AI voices to narrate audiobooksAudible has announced plans to use AI technology to narrate audiobooks, with AI translation to follow.
Amazon brand will offer more than 100 artificial intelligence-generated voices in English and other languages
Audible to use AI technology to produce audiobooksAudible is set to offer "end-to-end" AI production technology – including translation and narration – to publishers to create audiobooks. The audiobook company explained that it will work with publishers to produce audiobooks using AI at all points of the process.
Audible Expands Catalog with AI Narration and Translation for Publishers
Audiobooks are the fastest-growing format in publishing, yet of the millions of books published today, only a fraction are available in audio ...
The revolution will happen with or without Logos. If Logos does not move fast, the publishers will bypass Logos and work with Audible (or whoever their competition might be).
Being able to "listen" to a high quality AI reading of Logos resources would be a great reason for me to become a subscriber.
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- the NaturalReader and other AI readers are very good in terms of of narrator’s voices. Many choices of voice profiles and very human like. Logos should improve in this respect.
2. logos should have product owner team to gather feedback and direct product developments. No developers should do it. I would be surprised that Logos has the product owner team already
0 - the NaturalReader and other AI readers are very good in terms of of narrator’s voices. Many choices of voice profiles and very human like. Logos should improve in this respect.
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@Bin Liang , The NaturalReader suggestion is FANTASTIC! I would love it if Logos would integrate with something like that. They could essentially turn any Logos title into an audio book. I really wish Logos would give this more love and attention. Anyone know someone at Logos that could pass this suggestion into the dev's hands?
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Logos should definitely add AI narration. Not only does it sell more books (there are plenty of monographs I would be willing to listen to on my commute but would never sit down and read through), but it would make AI credits (and thus buying a subscription) much more enticing. I know I would much rather listen to a lifelike reader with an amazing voice than the default Windows setup, which sounds like a 1980's Speak-and-Spell.
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@Richard Dowdy 100% agree! I hadn't even considered it being part of the AI Credits and therefore a HUGE HUGE HUGE justification for the subscription! Wow! That would be GOLD. If I'm being honest, I would even pay an extra monthly fee for AI Narration (on top of the subscription).
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I would upgrade from Pro to Max if it got me AI narration on a level of what Kindle has for their books. It would be more than worth it.
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