Audible releases the rein of its Apple Watch application, which can now operate independently, following an initial authentication through the iPhone. Provided you have wireless headphones, you can therefore “stream” audio books on your watch without having to drag your iPhone.
The app uses the Apple Watch’s Wi-Fi or cellular connection to let you listen in streaming, and downloads the chapters in parallel so you can listen offline. While the Amazon subsidiary has provided an option to disable downloading, it has not provided a button to download an entire book in advance, as if recent Apple Watches did not have 32 GB of storage.
Listening progress is synced across all devices, and you can resume a book started on your Apple Watch on your iPhone, or vice versa. Audible has (fortunately) not forgotten the playback speed control, which can be adjusted from 0.5 to 3.5×, in 0.1× increments. Audible Subscription costs €9.95 for a credit to be redeemed for one book per month, following a thirty-day trial which is doubled for Amazon Prime members.
