“Books on Tape” from Audible
Audible.com, which you can shop right from within the iTunes Music Store, is a virtual store filled with digital "books on tape”—not just books, but also everything from vocalized versions of the New York Times to programs like National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. You can hear free samples of most files on the site before you buy.
If you choose to subscribe, $15 a month gets you one recorded book a month, plus a daily, weekly, or monthly magazine or radio show. You can also skip the subscription business and just buy the books you want for a flat fee. Prices vary, but the audio file usually costs less than the hard copy and fits in your pocket better. “The Da Vinci Code,” a popular mystery novel selling for $25 in book stores, was $20 on Audible.com.
Formats within formats
Audible.com files that come from its Web site (and not from the iTunes Music Store) use the .aa file name extension. You can’t convert .aa files to MP3, but you can burn them to an audio CD to play on the stereo, and you can copy them to your iPod.
Most recordings from Audible.com come in a variety of sound resolutions, from low-fi, AM radio–like sound to a really good MP3 quality. The Audible resolutions that work on the iPod are called Formats 2, 3, and 4 (from worst to best quality). Better audio quality, of course, means a bigger file to download.
For example, the 18-hour audio book for Snow Crash is split into two files. The first half is a 34 MB download in Format 2, a 63 ...
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