Spotify, Apple, and Audiobooks
Separate from Elon Musk and his sink, here’s some other tech news: Spotify wants to jump aboard the audiobook revolution, but Apple is playing gatekeeper. Basically, unlike Google Play (how Android users buy/download apps), Apple wants to run the purchase of an audiobook through its own App Store. In mid-September, Spotify launched its audiobook service with 30,000 titles. But then the plug was pulled, partly thanks to people noticing that it was “cumbersome” to use the service and Spotify subsequently submitting an app update — that Apple rejected. The final (for now) result is that users are greeted with this message on Spotify — “You can’t buy audiobooks in the app. We know it’s not ideal.” (burn, Apple) — and that they now have to go through an Apple labyrinth to complete a purchase.
But aside from all the tech-giant wrangling, here’s what I’m curious about as a non-audiobook-listener and a (mostly) non-ebook-reader: If you fall into these categories and buy your books (as opposed to borrowing digital material from the library), do you ever share your books with other people? Part of the reason I like to buy books (as opposed to check them out from the library, although I do that a lot) is because I hope that I can share these books, especially with my children. Indeed, with my kids now being 17 and 19, this has started to happen. I know that there is an ability to share digital reading material with other people…but do you? I guess I’m just curious what happens to people’s massive digital libraries when they’re done reading.
No judgement intended — although maybe it sounds like it. (But I don’t like that I can’t see your “library” when I visit you at your house!)
originally published on instagram