ShelfPlayer

Name: ShelfPlayer
Price: 5.99 USD
Rating: 4.1 (104 reviews)
Author: Rasmus Kramer

Audiobookshelf client

$5.99 · Designed for iPad

104 Ratings
Ages

4+
Years
Category

Books
Developer

Rasmus Kramer
Language

EN
+ 6 More
Size

11.9
MB

ShelfPlayer is a powerful iOS application for listening to audiobooks and podcasts, designed for users with self-hosted Audiobookshelf libraries. Built in **Swift 6** for **iOS 18+**, ShelfPlayer is fast, privacy-respecting, and deeply integrated with the Apple ecosystem. ShelfPlayer does not include any media content. A running Audiobookshelf instance is required to use the app. Features Full content browsing: Explore audiobooks, authors, narrators, series, podcasts, episodes, collections, and playlists. Multiple users and libraries: Connect to multiple Audiobookshelf servers or user accounts simultaneously. System-level integration: Supports Widgets, Siri, App Intents, and CarPlay. Global discovery: "Listen Now" and universal search work across all connected libraries. Advanced playback tools: Highly configurable playback speed and sleep timer. Daily listen tracking: Accurate tracking of playback time, with optional daily goals. PDF viewer: Built-in support for attached PDF documents. Offline access: Automatic media downloads for seamless offline playback. Modern interface: Clean, native design optimized for both iPhone and iPad. ShelfPlayer is not affiliated with Apple, Audiobookshelf, or any third-party platform or service.

Ratings & Reviews

4.1

out of 5

104 Ratings

Great app, but genre filter isn't working?
Oct 24

RandomAaron
The app is great - I have tried many audiobook apps, and this one is really good. The only problem is that it does not return any results from my audiobookshelf when filtering by genres. The little tag button is definitely populating from my genre list, but when you select one, there's no result.This is really frustrating, because it's the most useful part of discovery. There should be the ability to sort by genre, since audiobookshelf doesn't populate tags.
Great app, but genre filter isn't working?
Oct 24

RandomAaron

The app is great - I have tried many audiobook apps, and this one is really good. The only problem is that it does not return any results from my audiobookshelf when filtering by genres. The little tag button is definitely populating from my genre list, but when you select one, there's no result.This is really frustrating, because it's the most useful part of discovery. There should be the ability to sort by genre, since audiobookshelf doesn't populate tags.
Disappointing
08/24/2024

Raptorious Dan
I expected a lot more from a $5 app that is written to take advantage of the latest iOS features. While the interface generally looks nice, it is actually less user friendly and less functional than the first party Audiobookshelf app (beta is unfortunately full and it’s not yet on the App Store). Just in the first week of use, I noticed a number of issues that really need to be addressed:* Mysterious slowdowns that bring the app to a crawl such that force closing and restarting the app was the only option (encountered while queuing multiple downloads)* Mostly unusable search; searching anything other than author just doesn’t work (searches for title and other metadata just run indefinitely, never returning results)* The interface, while pretty, is just not at all intuitively designed. Finding settings was difficult, for example

Developer Response
Hey,there is some work being done to address these issues. ShelfPlayer's offline system has already been rewritten to offload work from the UI thread. There are many other useful changes coming.But I hope you can appreciate that large updates like this take their time, and it won't be ready available next week.The search functionality was broken due to me some breaking API changes from ABS, a fix will be released soon.If you have any other UX ideas please send them to git@rfk.io.I can understand why you are not happy with the app, but pleas give it another try after the next update is released!
Disappointing
08/24/2024

Raptorious Dan

I expected a lot more from a $5 app that is written to take advantage of the latest iOS features. While the interface generally looks nice, it is actually less user friendly and less functional than the first party Audiobookshelf app (beta is unfortunately full and it’s not yet on the App Store). Just in the first week of use, I noticed a number of issues that really need to be addressed:* Mysterious slowdowns that bring the app to a crawl such that force closing and restarting the app was the only option (encountered while queuing multiple downloads)* Mostly unusable search; searching anything other than author just doesn’t work (searches for title and other metadata just run indefinitely, never returning results)* The interface, while pretty, is just not at all intuitively designed. Finding settings was difficult, for example
Developer Response 08/25/2024
Hey,there is some work being done to address these issues. ShelfPlayer's offline system has already been rewritten to offload work from the UI thread. There are many other useful changes coming.But I hope you can appreciate that large updates like this take their time, and it won't be ready available next week.The search functionality was broken due to me some breaking API changes from ABS, a fix will be released soon.If you have any other UX ideas please send them to git@rfk.io.I can understand why you are not happy with the app, but pleas give it another try after the next update is released!
The best Audiobookshelf experience
4d ago

Raygan
There are now several great options for listening to audiobooks from an Audiobookshelf server on iOS. ShelfPlayer is my favorite by a lot. The design is great, and it’s ridiculously full featured. For example it’s the only app I’ve found that can add books to Collections, something I’d previously only been able to do on the browser version of Audiobookshelf. Quick tip: the app can be extensively customized. Many of its more fiddly settings are in the Settings app rather than directly in the ShelfPlayer app, which I like.I run this app on iPhone, iPad, and occasionally even on my Mac (as an iPad app) and it’s a great tool on all of them.Many thanks to this awesome developer for a polished and beautiful app.
The best Audiobookshelf experience
4d ago

Raygan

There are now several great options for listening to audiobooks from an Audiobookshelf server on iOS. ShelfPlayer is my favorite by a lot. The design is great, and it’s ridiculously full featured. For example it’s the only app I’ve found that can add books to Collections, something I’d previously only been able to do on the browser version of Audiobookshelf. Quick tip: the app can be extensively customized. Many of its more fiddly settings are in the Settings app rather than directly in the ShelfPlayer app, which I like.I run this app on iPhone, iPad, and occasionally even on my Mac (as an iPad app) and it’s a great tool on all of them.Many thanks to this awesome developer for a polished and beautiful app.
possibly the perfect iPhone app!
12/11/2024

feoh
this app literally hits every note perfectly!It’s tailor-made for a very specific niche use case: that being folks who run the Audio shelf self hosted audiobook software - but it does it so well that I now prefer it as my ex exclusive full-time way of listening to audiobooks! It’s that good! it’s worth every cent of its price and more. I can’t say enough good things. This is really outstanding work and I deeply appreciate all of the care the authors clearly lavished on this application! It really shows!
possibly the perfect iPhone app!
12/11/2024

feoh

this app literally hits every note perfectly!It’s tailor-made for a very specific niche use case: that being folks who run the Audio shelf self hosted audiobook software - but it does it so well that I now prefer it as my ex exclusive full-time way of listening to audiobooks! It’s that good! it’s worth every cent of its price and more. I can’t say enough good things. This is really outstanding work and I deeply appreciate all of the care the authors clearly lavished on this application! It really shows!