christianaudio 12+

Overall, the app works great, and I love the books I’ve listened too, but there are a couple features that it lacks that really bug me.
1) When I click the button on my headphones, other podcast or music apps will pause and then if I click again they resume. This feature does not work on this app for my iPhone 6. Seems like an easy feature to add which would be very very useful.
2) The lock screen controls in my iPhone done have a skip 30 seconds ahead or backwards button like the podcast apps do. If I want to jump back to re-listen to a portion, I need to unlock my phone and open the app. This also seems like an easy function to add, which would go a long way in the usability of the app.

To the developers: I’ve read the reviews and determined that people love the IDEA of this app, an app this lets users download, manage, and listen to great book by amazing authors. But this has not been my actual experience.
For starters, managing content is difficult with the lack of tools given. There is no way to group, categorize or sort content. Once you have more than about fifteen titles, you will find yourself eating time looking for them—instead of listening to them. Case in point, I end up marking books as finished or downloading/deleting them to manage content, but even these features don’t work as expected. Even though I switch to look only at titles on my devices, the app continually switches back to showing what’s in the cloud. I can mark a book as finished, but the app does not retain that setting. When switching to the chapters screen, there is no obvious way to navigate away from it. On an iPhone 10 or later, the top icons are oddly squished around the notch making it nearly impossible to actually tap the buttons at times.

I expect better from a Christian company, in fact, we should all expect the best from a Christian company. I hope this is helpful in making the app all that it could be.

What do you do when an app actually helps you achieve your goals? You write about it and spread the word. I’ve been using Christian Audio long before the app when there was just cd’s. Lots of cd’s. The switch to app based product enables me to access my library whenever I want. It also enables me to purchase books that I simply don’t have time to get through in paper form. I’m a therapist by trade so I need to get through more books than I have time for. You can imagine my relief when I discovered that not only can I listen to books on the go but I can speed them up. I fly through books on my way to work, at breaks at lunch, and then again when I have spare time. Sure I have the physical copy on my shelf that I use for reference, quotes and talks but the audiobook helps me to get through them. I love that I can sit in a sauna and be learning about addiction, marriage or theology. I also take advantage of the summer and winter sales to stock up.
This app is a game changer for me and I am thankful to for it.