Does Apple Watch support audio books?

TidBITS Talk
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I run almost every day. Often with my wife, but sometimes alone when either of us is traveling. Running 7 miles alone is boring, especially in the dark, so I used to take along an iPod shuffle or nano on my solo runs to listen to audio books. I use a Garmin watch for all my running stuff and I have zero desire to take along an iPhone, but with my last tiny iPod busted and a new nano going for $250 or more, I’ve been wondering about a replacement. Now that there’s a $149 deal for a 40 mm gen2 Apple Watch SE, I wonder if perhaps an Apple Watch could serve as my audio book source. So a few questions:

  • Will it work to play Apple Store audio books to Air Pods assuming no iPhone anywhere nearby?
  • What about any other type of audio book, say MP3?
  • Can it sync straight from Mac or does it sync via iPhone?
  • How much do I have to tinker with it to just sync audio books I already have in Music and have those play to my APP?

I’m mainly interested in setting it up for just running so it would have my audio books only and just play them over my APP (hence I also prefer the tiniest screen). I have no interest in using the Apple Watch for any running stuff and I have absolutely no interest in anything that requires an iPhone to be tethered to the watch. If setting it up requires more than 10 min or the AW is high maintenance in terms of constant upgrade nag, it’s probably not the right device for my purposes. For comparison: my Garmin cost about $100, recharges easily over night, still lasts well over the 4:20 hrs I need for a marathon, required just about 2 min to set up initially, and has worked ever since without a hitch. All I need is time & distance and it does that just fine. I essentially want an audio book player with about the same level of convenience.

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With the caveat that I’ve never done it before - I hate listening to audiobooks myself - there is an audiobooks section on the Watch settings app.

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I do have a couple in my library, and my son has a few, so I am adding one. If it is anything like the podcast app or music app, it will work fine. (As it turns out, it is just like those apps. My audiobook is on my watch, I turned on Airplane Mode, and the book is playing fine.)

Yes.

For that I would add the content to the the Music app and use that as well, with the setting (Cmd-i for Get Info, Options) to remember playback position, and play it from the music app. (Note: I am both an iTunes watch and Apple Music subscriber. I don’t know how it works if you are not, as I believe you are not. It should be the same if you have the content on your phone, though.)

iPhone. But the watch has to be on the charger to transfer content. (It took about 3 minutes to transfer an audiobook while it charged.) The same goes for the music app, by the way - the content transfers while on the charger and connected to WiFi of BT to your phone. But once it’s there, you’d be all set.

Note that you can play over the network on the watch app itself, but that will not be helpful when you are away from a network and your phone, so you’d want to make sure that you transferred the content over.

Not too bad. From the watch app on the iPhone, tap Music, then Add Music, and from there you get the standard list (playlist, artists, genres, etc.) So you could hit Genres, then Books & Spoken, then choose the album and/or tracks.

You don’t need to.

If you mean while you are running, you don’t need to. But the only way to set up a watch is to pair it to an iPhone. Just clarifying what you mean - you can’t just buy a watch and use it without an iPhone at all.

You should be ok, but I’ve never. tested an SE like that. If it is not tracking the workout, it will absolutely be fine for 4:20 of. audio.

One more thing, though: note that text on my link above.

5 hours from each audiobook you add will be downloaded to your Apple Watch as long as there’s available space.

That seems like a weird restriction to me. But, if it is real, you should be good for the 4:20 marathon, but I think many audiobooks are longer than 5 hours.

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Yes, but every audio book I’ve seen uses a separate file for each chapter of the book. So even if the book is 50 hours long, each file will probably be far less than that 5 hour limit.

The question here is what is meant by “5 hours”. Do they mean in a single file or across the set of files that comprises a book?

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That’s very helpful. Thank you.

I’m put off by a 3-min transfer for a simple audiobook. I guess the whole thing was designed with low power in mind. Not my focus as I’d only be using it for 1 hr a day for a couple days a month. Oh well. It’s still good to know.