Painfully slow Audible app

By Dave Nason, 26 September, 2023

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi All,
For the past couple of months, the Audible app has been painfully slow for me, with screens taking an age to load. It’s made using the app, which I do a lot, rather frustrating.
Is anyone else experiencing this?
I’m on an iPhone -‘12 mini, though my 15 Pro is arriving tomorrow 🤞 and I have tried deleting and reinstalling the app to no avail.
Dave

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Comments

By Brian on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

Running iPhone SE2, iOS 16, Audible takes several seconds to load the first time. I should mention I have well over 500 titles in my library, because I'm dirty like that. Anyways, once Audible "loads", I am able to navigate the different Tabs/Pages without issues.

HTH

By Andy Lane on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

Audible is basically unusable for me, I have I think 1600 books in my library and loading is as you said, painfully slow. Even when it does load, navigating is inconsistent to say the least. Search is broken and you can’t tell what you own and what you don’t. Strangely it seems to put books you don’t own above ones you do sometimes. When you tap a book to download, sometimes it goes into the book details and sometimes it just downloads it. Flicking backward and forward can land you anywhere. Even the player window isn’t the best to navigate. For example, changing narration speed should be a flick up and down on the button but you have to go in then search for the speed you want which isn’t easy as most of the screen seems to be blank, same with the sleep timer and chapters. It’s a mess. The worst of it is that audiobooks were bloody well invented for blind people but now predictably amazon don’t give a rats behind. They are too busy making bank. The absolute best part is that I contacted them, explaining the difficulties I was having and that I would be more than happy to work with their developers to improve the app for voiceover users and they came back to me a week later saying I should write a review. They actually said to someone knocking on their door asking if they could help improve things to basically piss off and stop bothering them and they might speak to me if I wrote a review. Well I wrote a review, it was not very positive to say the least and it explained why I was so upset with them. Guess what. They didn’t respond to that. I admit, my anger had got the better of me when they sent me away to write a review when I could not have been nicer and more constructive on the phone.

Do you have any other ideas?

This is not good enough and Amazon just don’t care. Literally don’t care at all.

By Andy Lane on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

I told them I was very disappointed with their response, especially a few days after they were talking about inclusion and accessibility at their hardware event. More accessibility washing when the reality is very different.

By Holger Fiallo on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

930 audiobooks.

By Brian on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

Now I just feel like a slacker... 🫢

By Panais on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

And my experience is exactly like Brian’s. First screen take some time to load but after that I’m good.
I also thought that I was a bookworm but obviously I am a slacker as well. No wonder Andy is so wise. Although I would Also place Brian in the thousands given the comments I read from time to time.

By Lee on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

Slow to load but then works fine even on iOS17.

By Bingo Little on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

it takes a good while to load upon launch. I've also found the library very clunky ever since about a million versions ago. I've always been surprised at how mediocre the Audible app experience is from an accessibility standpoint. I wouldn't go as far as to say it's not accessible. it's usable for me, but not intuitive or pleasant to use.

I have 12 million books in my library.

By Brian on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

You could alternatively go to:
https://www.audible.com/library/
On your iPhone, etc. So Long as you are logged in to your Audible account, you can access your library, including some of the sorting features present within the app. You can also play your titles from here, and yes, it supports whisper sync.

One extra thing you can do, is once on your library page, double tap "Share" at the bottom of your browser, and then double tap on "Add to Home Screen". This will make a shortcut on your Home Screen that acts similar to an app.

HTH. 😅

By Dave Nason on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Thanks all. It’s good to know it’s not just me!
I only have 257 titles, and even went through and deleted the downloads of all finished books that were on my device, but that made no difference.
Like others it’s worst when I first open the app, but is also slower than I’d expect when I move from screen to screen. Once a screen is loaded, it’s generally ok.
Dave

By Brian on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

Don't feel bad. I have my Audible app setup to auto delete books I finish, and it "still" struggles to load the first time. 🤬

By gailisaiah on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

Hi Brian and all,
First of all, to Brian, where is that setting to auto-delete books? I didn't think you could do that.

Also, I am not experiencing Audible slowness. Have iPhone 14.

By gailisaiah on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

Hi Brian and all,
First of all, to Brian, where is that setting to auto-delete books? I didn't think you could do that.

Also, I am not experiencing Audible slowness. Have iPhone 14.

By Brian on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

First!
dear gailisaiah
Give me your iPhone!

💛Brian

Ok, seriously, open your Audible app:
1. Double tap on the Profile tab, should be in the bottom right corner of your device once the app loads.
2. In the top left area of your screen, is a "setting" button.
3. Navigate around until you find "Data & Storage".
4. Navigate to "auto remove".
5. Enable this.
6. Win.

Your welcome. 😆

By gailisaiah on Monday, October 9, 2023 - 03:11

Thanks, Brian!