Feature: Synched Audio and Text

The iPhone is many things beside a phone of course, and what must be the most-used feature is audio – usually music. And audio impinges heavily on the reading experience as well, whether it’s listening to an album while you’re reading, or making the full transition to an audiobook read in a lively and entertaining style. (The audiobook has been around for many years now, from those huge tape packs you used to buy for long car journeys, through CDs to a new lease of life as mp3s from retailers like Audible and iTunes. The fact that audiobooks frequently outsell the hardback edition of many books is a direct but little-quoted challenge to the persistent idea that the physical, paper book is the only “real” way to read.)

With Enhanced Editions, we’ve built audio into the reading experience. You can listen to your own iTunes collection, of course, but we’ve also built in the possibility of a dedicated soundtrack – something Nick Cave took full advantage of in our edition of Bunny Munro, composing exclusive sound pieces for each and every chapter of the book.

The really big audio feature of Enhanced Editions, however, is this: ebooks that include a full audiobook synchronise the reading with the text, so you can switch instantly and perfectly from the text to the audio and back again.

Imagine you’re reading on the bus. It’s your stop, and rather than stop reading, you tap over to the audiobook and immediately the audiobook picks up from the same point, the dulcet tones of Nick Cave or Barack Obama continuing the story from where you left off. The text keeps scrolling, and when you’re done listening, you can switch back to the text without losing your place.

Enhanced Editions is the first ebook reader to include full audiobook syncing, and we’re very proud of it. We hope you like it too.