I just set up an account for my daughter with audible.com, and downloaded a book for her to listen to on the bus. The good news is that is appears to be all set up now, and ready to download to her iTouch. The bad news is ... everything else.
We spent nearly an hour buying a single audio "book", and getting it copied down to her computer. The problems were nearly all related to digital rights management, though I'd class them in two groups: fundamental, and incompetent.
The fundamental problem is that DRM makes downloading and using media much more difficult. It restricts which programs and devices you can use it with. Further, is it any surprise that downloading a program whose fundamental purpose is to prevent proscribed uses of a media file makes it more difficult to successfully use that media file? In the case of audible, we had to download a program to my daughter's laptop that insinuated itself into firefox and itunes in unspecified ways, so that she could download the Audible files she had paid for to her laptop, and thence to her iPod. This program failed to install itself properly the first time -- apparently it doesn't check to see whether itunes is running, but fails mysteriously if it is. When we tried to download the book we had paid for to her computer, we kept getting mysterious error messages. These went away once we reinstalled the software.
The problems of incompetence were mostly caused by a user interface that tries to pretend that the challenge is easier than it actually is. The Web site makes a big thing out of the four simple steps required to get going with Audible. Step 1 is "Pick a plan". We didn't want to sign up for a plan, so it took us a while to figure out that you can buy books without a plan. Step 2 is "Download Audible software". In the description it says "You can also use ITunes to download audio ...". We decided to go that route initially, before figuring out that apparently the audible.com software is required in addition to iTunes. It didn't help that the iPod Touch is not listed in the "supported devices" list, so we had to guess which software we need. Step 3 is "Purchase and download". Our problems with this step are described in the previous paragraph. Step 4 is "Transfer your audio to your AudibleReady device". Here the solution was easy: we just had to figure out that Audible had created a new sort of "playlist" in iTunes, and that we had to tell iTunes to sync that playlist with the iPod Touch. A common step in iTunes -- but it would have been nice for Audible to walk us through that step.
A very frustrating hour later, my daughter is pretty happy with having her book ready for the bus. I'm much less happy. Audible seems like a company that is going to fail if they don't figure out these user interface issues. What, then, will happen to the DRM that requires a "phone home" to install the book on a different device? (Yes, even the iPod Touch will one day seem outdated.) Even though I'm eager to listen to "books on pod" while I exercise, I refuse to buy these DRM-crippled alternatives. Yes, convenience is worth a lot, but more important to me is the principle that media that I buy must be usable for me into the murky future, independent of the survival of any one company, format, device, or business model.
What do you think?
John
Audible's software and customer sevice is terrible
On a whim last night, I really missed a Deepak Chopra program I had on cassette. I don't own a cassette player anymore and decided to pay for a legal copy in digital format. Amazon didn't have it in download format, so I didn't find many options; only Audible.com and Simply Audiobooks. The 'price' seemed better at Audible, so I went with it.
First, I found their membership programs to be confusing but I didn't let it stop me. If only I had known what I was soon in for, I would have gone elsewhere.
They managed to charge my card instantly, but when I was introduced to 'My Library' I had to think hard what to do next. I don't have an I-Pod, I just wanted an MP3 or such. It seemed obvious that the thing to do was click 'Download' next to the audio I had added to my library, but when I did so, it installed a download manager (yet another crappy implementation on par with microsoft's own) and AudibleManager, which is the gatekeeper for the DRS functionality. Thing is, nothing ever downloaded, there was no intro or instructions, and clicking 'help' did nothing at all.
I thought I should wait a while but next morning, there is still nothing in my library on my computer.
I was also perplexed how difficult it was to get customer service via email; I finally found a web form to submit a trouble ticket, in which I explained that clicking 'download' next to the audiobook in my library (on the website) only downloads the manager program again.
I got a robotic response by email late this afternoon that did not address why my download did not arrive. I responded to that emphasizing that the software is not working. The next robotic response read as if I never mentioned anything about the download failure. It just said download from 'my library' as before, ignoring the problem with the download. I've sent a third response, but now I wish I'd never tried them. I'm running XP, not some exotic OS flavor.
In my book, the service I'm getting is on par with Verizon (who is only worse because I can't get them to take my money!)
Audible's software and customer sevice is terrible
FYI, the wesite's download functionality doesn't work with Opera. You have to use Internet Explorer. Typical. Would have been nice if that was mentioned somewhere!
John, there's " "
John, there's " " strings appearing in your posts, both in Google Reader and directly on the GL blog. I wonder if this is related to the posting software you're using?
Yes, it turns out that
Yes, it turns out that ScribeFire was inserting those buggily. Should be fixed now. Thanks!
John
Audible
I experienced the same frustrations when I first started using audible, but if you listen to a lot on tape while you're working out or travelling, they have a nice selection, and I haven't found a better alternative yet.
My biggest complaint is that I can't lend anybody any of the books I listen to, so if I find one that's particularly good (the 10 faces of innovation comes to mind), I can tell my colleagues about it, but not share it with them. In practice, Audible's DRM is more restrictive than a book.
Hmmm....I've been using
Hmmm....I've been using Audible for years and so has my wife. We haven't had any problems - just made sure the devices we tried to download on to were on their list (first, my Rio player, and later until present, iPods).
When I want a new book, I:
1) Purchase it (2 mins)
2) Navigate to the "My Library" section and download it to my computer (5 mins for most books)
3) Transfer the program onto my player (1-2 mins)
I've thought about the inability to lend as mentioned previously, but if I was running the business I don't know what better scheme I'd come up with to make sure that authors, readers, and Audible itself get paid.
Buying just one book on CD at a bookstore costs many times what the same book does from Audible and each book represents a goodly sized box of CD's laying around that has to be kept somewhere.
So, while it might be a pain at times, it makes my commute a lot better and I haven't seen anything even close to it in the Recorded Books arena.