Blog Archives
Audible Control Center Options (Life Changer)
Okay, this may not change your life, but for me it has quite literally brought about a new found sense of ease and happiness while listening to audiobooks.
If you use the Audible app for iOS (or Android I would assume as well) and you use it on your smartphone while walking around or doing chores or whatever, then you’ve probably had someone say something to you or a train or a loud truck go by that causes you to miss part of the book you’re listening to.
Arg! and Be quiet! Can’t you see I’m listening to an audiobook! Do not disturb!
Anyway, until a week ago, I was not aware that you could actually change the behavior of the “Control Center” for Audible. What does that mean? The Control Center is evidently the name for the lock screen that you get when you’re listening to music or an audiobook or some other app that uses what I can only assume is the Audio API. This is what it would look like if you’d just started listening to No Return by Zachary Jernigan (on sale for a ridiculous $4.49 on Amazon/Audible at the time of this writing):
What is the behavior you could (and probably should) change? Well, there’s those arrows to each side of the Play/Pause button. If you’re listening to music, it’s pretty obvious that they’ll go back and forth in your playlist. But for an audiobook? You’d probably assume they’d go back and forth between chapters (and you’d be right). But chapters in audiobooks tend to be long. I’ve never actually wanted to skip ahead or back a whole chapter. (Maybe someone else has) But if you go to the Settings in Audible and scroll down a little, you’ll see a setting for the Control Center. In the screenshot below it’s already set to Jump Seconds, but as mentioned, the default is Chapter Skip.
Hit that Chapter Skip and you’ll get the next screen where you can change it to Jump Seconds. Then you can go back and customize how many seconds you want the app to jump forward or back. (I like 20 seconds, obviously. I listen at 1.25x usually and 30 seconds is a bit too far for most interruptions or external noises. 20 seconds at 1.25 speed is really only 16 seconds and if I were listening to a book where I had to 1x it, I’d probably change that setting to 10 seconds instead – 15 seconds would probably be ideal in that case, but it’s not an option).
That’s all. Now you can back up quickly and efficiently without having to unlock your phone. Life: changed. You’re welcome. 🙂
Apple Revamping Notifications: Best News I’ve Heard All Day
Knock knock. Who’s there? An interrupting notification. An interrupting notif… TWEET!
Apparently Apple is going to buy a company to redo their notifications for them. I’m not sure why they don’t just have the devs who did the original system fix it, but then again, I don’t really care. As long as they care of the ugly interrupting boxes it’s all good.
Give me the drawer!
Vying For Your Attention
In an effort to vie for your attention in the Check In Wars, Gowalla now lets you check in on Facebook and Foursquare.
In an effort to vie for your attention in the TV and Movie Watching Wars, Netflix is willing to shell out big bucks for in-season TV shows. Good thing because the prospect of paying $15 for Netflix and $8 for Hulu – while still cheaper than cable, satellite, or AT&T’s thing – is starting to look expensive to a cheapskate frugal person like me.
You Learn Something New Every Day: 002
I learned: That I can type on my phone for about 8 minutes in 40 degrees before my hands get cold enough that I want to stop. Of course I could do better if it was an emergency. You know, a typing on your phone for extended periods in cold weather emergency.
Evidently AT&T Does Know What Kind of Phone I Have
This one is a much better sell than the previous marketing email. Still kind of odd they’re going for the upsell iof adding a line with the 3GS instead of the 4G, but perhaps they did some checking and saw that I’m not actually eligible for the 4G just yet.
Nels Wadycki 