Apps Add DRM free audio books to apple watch

[name99]

Okay, here's some really great news.

1. iCatcher plays .m4b files without issue. So that's good news right there. Just tried it, works a treat.
2. You don't need to use a cloud service to import media to it!
   
   This is thanks to your use of an iMac. AirDrop is your friend. It transfers entirely over your local LAN, very likely at much higher speeds than over your Internet connection. Et voilà:
   1. On your Mac, select the .m4b file.
   2. Command-click. Select the Share menu. In the Share menu, select AirDrop.
   3. In the AirDrop dialog that comes up, point to your iPhone. You may need to unlock your phone.
   4. When the file is finished transferring, you iPhone will ask what app to open it in! Select iCatcher.
   5. iCatcher will ask you what "podcast" (folder) to add it to. You can choose an existing podcast or create a new one.
   6. Done. Now proceed in iCatcher to transfer the file to the Watch.

So slick.

UPDATE: Yes, the .m4b file also plays on the Watch. The one I tried is 714 minutes long! It took a while to transfer from iPhone to Watch, but I just went about my business with the Watch on my wrist and the phone in my pocket, and poof, there it was.

I'm so happy with iCatcher that I've deleted Overcast, Castro and Downcast, none of which do all that I want, while iCatcher does ...with the exception, at this moment, of automatic transfer of desired podcasts to the Watch when new episodes are downloaded. (Soon.)

So once again to add a reality check, if you try the above but with a FOLDER of files, you will not get this happy effect. You can in fact find a place to store the folder that appears to be the iCatcher home folder (and is the same place that stores files/folders dragged into iCatcher via iTunes' File Sharing Window). But in both cases iCatcher appears to be oblivious that files can be added to its storage in this way.

So, like I said: IF your audiobooks consist of a single long file, iCatcher may be great. But if for whatever reason your audiobooks consist of lots of small files, 😢

 

[sjinsjca]

So once again to add a reality check, if you try the above but with a FOLDER of files, you will not get this happy effect... So, like I said: IF your audiobooks consist of a single long file, iCatcher may be great. But if for whatever reason your audiobooks consist of lots of small files, 😢

Hm, haven't tried sending a folder across. But I've selected multiple files at once in Finder (using the usual command-click) and that works.

I'd imagine WatchOS does not yet support folder structures for files or even understand them very well. iOS doesn't either-- try putting a folder of apps inside another folder of apps. Last time I tried this, it did not work.

The technology (and this app) is advancing so rapidly, that might change at some point.

 

[Lyn2012]

Can anyone trying OS7 please confirm whether or not m4b DRM free audiobooks can be sideloaded? Sometimes multiple m4bs make up one book, 48+ hours! I haven’t used my watch for months but may give it another go if this omission has been rectified.

 

[name99]

Hm, haven't tried sending a folder across. But I've selected multiple files at once in Finder (using the usual command-click) and that works.

I'd imagine WatchOS does not yet support folder structures for files or even understand them very well. iOS doesn't either-- try putting a folder of apps inside another folder of apps. Last time I tried this, it did not work.

The technology (and this app) is advancing so rapidly, that might change at some point.

It's unclear how much of this is Apple's fault and how much is developer not-giving-a-fsck.

(a) You ABSOLUTELY can drag folders to iOS apps in iTunes. Try it. You seem to be confusing a UI choice (don't present the user with folders in Springboard) with a file system functionality (nested folders in APFS). iOS has had nested folders from the beginning. An app like GoodReader makes aggressive use of them.

(b) An app that cared could easily work around this. Even if iOS to WatchOS only allows the transfer of one file at a time, that's an API issue, not a UI issue. The app can still provide a "select all" button and then do its own looping for the transfer. Or it can zip all the files into a single archive (maybe use weakest compression level), then unzip on the watch side. The basic problem is that every app that claims to be doing this just DOES NOT CARE. They are podcast apps, they think podcasts are the only things that matter, and they have added side-loading as a checkbox feature to get suckers (like me) to give them some dollars. They don't give a damn for how well the feature works, just that they can mark it as present.

Castro, Mixtape, iCatcher, Overcast --- all of them DO NOT CARE ABOUT THIS FEATURE. And when the app doesn't care about a feature it's garbage, as we see in all four cases.

 

[sjinsjca]

It's unclear how much of this is Apple's fault and how much is developer not-giving-a-fsck.

...Figured out how to import a full folder of audiobook files into iCatcher.

Turns out it's easy once you know the steps. Maybe not as easy as dragging a folder from A to B, but pretty simple.

1. Enter the "folder" (podcast) you want to store this set of imports. In my example below, I select the "Imported Media" folder but it can be anything you want.
2. Click the iCatcher icon near upper right corner
3. Select the Files App (there are other options too)
4. Navigate to the folder that contains the DRM-free audiobook files you want to import
5. Select the ones you want, or Select All
6. Click "Open".
7. iCatcher will switch back to your folder and the files will be imported.

(If you have the folder set to auto-transfer new content to your Apple Watch, that will proceed automatically too.)

Video demo below. By the way, if you want a feature, by all means tell the developer. He/she may well give a fsck. Or maybe not: I got no joy from doing that with Castro and Overcast, but the guy behind iCatcher has been super responsive and has implemented several things I've asked for. Ditto with the Forecast Bar, WeatherGraph and Battery Grapher guys. It's a big reason why I'm so happy to recommend their products.

 

[sjinsjca]

Can anyone trying OS7 please confirm whether or not m4b DRM free audiobooks can be sideloaded? Sometimes multiple m4bs make up one book, 48+ hours! I haven’t used my watch for months but may give it another go if this omission has been rectified.

WatchOS 7 hits the streets tomorrow... I'll try it but fully expect this to work well. Check back then!

UPDATE: Works as I’ve documented here. Improvements are coming too.

 

[name99]

...Figured out how to import a full folder of audiobook files into iCatcher.

Turns out it's easy once you know the steps. Maybe not as easy as dragging a folder from A to B, but pretty simple.

1. Enter the "folder" (podcast) you want to store this set of imports. In my example below, I select the "Imported Media" folder but it can be anything you want.
2. Click the iCatcher icon near upper right corner
3. Select the Files App (there are other options too)
4. Navigate to the folder that contains the DRM-free audiobook files you want to import
5. Select the ones you want, or Select All
6. Click "Open".
7. iCatcher will switch back to your folder and the files will be imported.

(If you have the folder set to auto-transfer new content to your Apple Watch, that will proceed automatically too.)

Video demo below. By the way, if you want a feature, by all means tell the developer. He/she may well give a fsck. Or maybe not: I got no joy from doing that with Castro and Overcast, but the guy behind iCatcher has been super responsive and has implemented several things I've asked for. Ditto with the Forecast Bar, WeatherGraph and Battery Grapher guys. It's a big reason why I'm so happy to recommend their products.

I appreciate that you are trying to be helpful, but you're also not listening!

The problem is not getting the books into the iPhone. That's a mess, but it's doable.
The problem is getting 288 small files from the iPhone TO THE WATCH. THAT is the part where every app demands that you select every file, one at a time, and transfer it one at a time. (Note that EVERY ONE of the bulk file transfers that you have suggested TO THE WATCH have been Apple UI, not developer UI...)

THAT is the UI that makes it clear to me that the developers have (not one of them) ever actually cared about using this feature enough to realize that this sort of 288 rounds of tap, wait, tap, wait is UTTERLY unacceptable.

As for the iCatcher developer, maybe HE is the exception. But I have gone through this already with Mixtape, Overcast, and Castro a year ago, and those apps are still what they are today. That's one reason I am so angry about this -- they know they are shipping garbage, they've been told exactly how it is garbage, and they just DO NOT CARE.

So, yeah, not much interested in banging my head against a wall again. When a feature is CLEARLY broken, not some subtle small edge case, that tells me all I need to know about developer priorities vs checkbox features.



View attachment 953434

 

[sjinsjca]

I appreciate that you are trying to be helpful, but you're also not listening!

The problem is not getting the books into the iPhone. That's a mess, but it's doable.
The problem is getting 288 small files from the iPhone TO THE WATCH.

Try this:

With your audiobook files in a folder ("podcast") in iCatcher on your iPhone,

1. Create a new playlist
2. Add the podcast to this new playlist
3. In the playlist, select all (using the [...] button near the top right
4. Click the same button a second time, and select Transfer to Apple Watch.

There may be an even niftier way that I'm still researching, but this works easily and well.

 

[name99]

Try this:

With your audiobook files in a folder ("podcast") in iCatcher on your iPhone,

1. Create a new playlist
2. Add the podcast to this new playlist
3. In the playlist, select all (using the [...] button near the top right
4. Click the same button a second time, and select Transfer to Apple Watch.

There may be an even niftier way that I'm still researching, but this works easily and well.

It never freaking ends! OK, so I jumped through all the hoops so far, and final end product is
- marked all the files in iCatcher
- told them to transfer to to the watch
- a few files start being transferred. Looks good.
- two hours later iCatcher is showing the entire list as "clear" with no red "queued" next to any file. Great
- go to the watch
- 18(!) files have been transferred. Then iCatcher for whatever reason decided to call it a day.
And those files transferred are in random order with no apparent way to sort them out on the watch.

[[begin rant]]

Don't you feel that this is utterly INSANE!
I have to preprocess the files to get the ordering correct (because iCatcher does lexical ordering not semantic ordering, so files number 10-1 xxx come before 2-1 xxx.
Jump through hoops to get the files into iCatcher.
(ONE book at a time because otherwise everything is mixed up in _Imported Media_)...
Then get it into a playlist.
Then clean out _Imported Media_
Then transfer the playlist to the watch. Via what appears to be multiple copy attempts.
To land up with randomly ordered files on the watch. So much for my attempting to get the numbering correct in step 1...

All within a context that insists that what I am really doing is manipulating podcasts and insists on using podcast terminology for everything.

I am impressed that you finally figured out a way to achieve this. I am throughly unimpressed that such a Rube Goldberg set of steps is necessary. There was a time in my life where I treated this sort of thing as a challenge, something that I could and would solve, no matter how long it took. I'm too old for that now: if your app claims to do X, I expect it to do X with a maximum of three user interactions!

All I want is a damn watchos AUDIOBOOK app, not these insanely complex podcast players that have to be treated like diva's to coax them to do what should be basic and trivial tasks.
You don't deserve this rant, it's not your personal fault. But goddammit, 50 million apps on the app store, and not one of them is interested in actually doing this task well rather than being yet another damn podcast app? WTF???

 

[Lyn2012]

All I want is a damn watchos AUDIOBOOK app, not these insanely complex podcast players that have to be treated like diva's to coax them to do what should be basic and trivial tasks.

I’ll second this, as long as it works with side loaded m4bs, as I’ve told Apple many times over the past year.

 

[keithylias]

Hm, haven't tried sending a folder across. But I've selected multiple files at once in Finder (using the usual command-click) and that works.

I'd imagine WatchOS does not yet support folder structures for files or even understand them very well. iOS doesn't either-- try putting a folder of apps inside another folder of apps. Last time I tried this, it did not work.

The technology (and this app) is advancing so rapidly, that might change at some point.

Hey sjinsjca! So after reading all you very enthusiastic and detailed reviews and replies on the iCatcher! app I've decided to buy it, but I'm having trouble loading the files onto the apple watch. They get stuck in the "queued" section forever, the little loading wheel doesn't move, and I've tried everything I can think of. Do you have any suggestions on what I should do and how long each transfer should take? It's an audiobook where each file is about 20Mbs, 40 mins of audio.
I'd really appreciate any help here, as this is one of the main reasons why I bought the watch. Thanks!

 

[sjinsjca]

Hey sjinsjca! So after reading all you very enthusiastic and detailed reviews and replies on the iCatcher! app I've decided to buy it, but I'm having trouble loading the files onto the apple watch. They get stuck in the "queued" section forever, the little loading wheel doesn't move, and I've tried everything I can think of. Do you have any suggestions on what I should do and how long each transfer should take? It's an audiobook where each file is about 20Mbs, 40 mins of audio.
I'd really appreciate any help here, as this is one of the main reasons why I bought the watch. Thanks!

Dang, sorry to hear you're having frustrations. I've had this happen maybe twice in my months of intensive iCatcher usage; rebooting the Watch laxated the process. Try that.

You might need to delete and re-start the frozen downloads after rebooting the Watch.

 

[TGD1]

Hi guys, any updates on this? or new apps?
I too have been searching relentlessly.
I would like to listen to audiobooks whilst partaking in tediously dull activities such as swimming or running.

Does iCatcher remember where you stopped and can resume when needed?
Or do you need to *remember* then fast forward to that point when you wish to resume your audio book the next day?

And no 15 second rewind / FForward buttons yet?

update: bought it. It does have the 15sec buttons.
It’s taken 10mins to transfer half of a 200mb file. Still waiting.

tip: I have the FileBrowser app. It enables me to navigate networks and my networked computers, to access and edit, copy, delete folders and files. I’m new to the files app (a toddler version of finder or windows explorer?) but found that FileBrowser has been integrated into the Files app. ICatcher seems to use this Files app (and thus FileBrowser) as its navigation tool.

hope that makes sense, and hope they rename the files app so it is easier to explain these things.

The Apple Watch is really overpriced when you consider how limited it is - even when the tech is already there.

 

[call_me_venom]

Hi guys, any updates on this? or new apps?
I too have been searching relentlessly.
I would like to listen to audiobooks whilst partaking in tediously dull activities such as swimming or running.

Does iCatcher remember where you stopped and can resume when needed?
Or do you need to *remember* then fast forward to that point when you wish to resume your audio book the next day?

And no 15 second rewind / FForward buttons yet?

update: bought it. It does have the 15sec buttons.
It’s taken 10mins to transfer half of a 200mb file. Still waiting.

tip: I have the FileBrowser app. It enables me to navigate networks and my networked computers, to access and edit, copy, delete folders and files. I’m new to the files app (a toddler version of finder or windows explorer?) but found that FileBrowser has been integrated into the Files app. ICatcher seems to use this Files app (and thus FileBrowser) as its navigation tool.

hope that makes sense, and hope they rename the files app so it is easier to explain these things.

The Apple Watch is really overpriced when you consider how limited it is - even when the tech is already there.

How about the remembering to play from where it was left functionality?
Also in terms of transfer speed? is it always slow?

 

[RecentlyConverted]

Hi guys, any updates on this? or new apps?
I too have been searching relentlessly.
I would like to listen to audiobooks whilst partaking in tediously dull activities such as swimming or running.

Does iCatcher remember where you stopped and can resume when needed?
Or do you need to *remember* then fast forward to that point when you wish to resume your audio book the next day?

And no 15 second rewind / FForward buttons yet?

update: bought it. It does have the 15sec buttons.
It’s taken 10mins to transfer half of a 200mb file. Still waiting.

tip: I have the FileBrowser app. It enables me to navigate networks and my networked computers, to access and edit, copy, delete folders and files. I’m new to the files app (a toddler version of finder or windows explorer?) but found that FileBrowser has been integrated into the Files app. ICatcher seems to use this Files app (and thus FileBrowser) as its navigation tool.

hope that makes sense, and hope they rename the files app so it is easier to explain these things.

The Apple Watch is really overpriced when you consider how limited it is - even when the tech is already there.

I have begged Stratospherix to build a native watch app of FileBrowser.

I would love it, as one it would add so much functionality to the watch - play music (without using iTunes / music), play podcasts, view videos, view documents etc.

Secondly, imagine being away, losing you iPhone or it going wrong or stolen, and being able to download all your important files locally, from the watch to a replacement iPhone.

 

[garbage911]

I joined the forums to +1 and thank op for this thread.

Will tip icatcher once I'm sure it's working for my needs properly.

I think that some of the complaints about icatcher are misguided. So far; it's the easiest / most reliable way I've found to sideload mp3 onto the apple watch.

The vitriole and discontent should be directed at APPLE. How can apple watch integration be so worthless. It's horrible. Settings and configuration is randomly found everywhere. It's like a wild goose chase => is it on the phone? on the watch? in the app? in the settings?


And the lack of reliable podcast syncing is plain unacceptable. This does not feel like a "walled garden" apple product. More like something that was cobbled together by a couple of grad students.

I'm sure apple has a reason for this. But lack of resources is not one of them.

Anyways, thanks for providing the only reliable mp3 transfer method i've found yet!

 

[hduih7384z2387dz327]

what i do >
I use outcast, podcast player for apple watch
upload my audiobook to spotify podcast, copy link, and paste to watch, app downloads it from the net

 

[sjordi]

Unfortunately, iCatcher discards chapters in AudioBooks. Then that makes it useless for people who want to transfer .m4b AudioBooks to the AppleWatch.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Bookplayer, my favorite iOS audiobook app, is adding standalone Watch playback. The dev posted a couple of weeks ago that work is ongoing, so hopefully soon. It is free and open source, there is a subscription for I believe iCloud sync which should sync progress across devices (would be great if Watch app has this too.)

GitHub - TortugaPower/BookPlayer: Player for your DRM-free audiobooks

Player for your DRM-free audiobooks. Contribute to TortugaPower/BookPlayer development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

In the meantime, I found another app called WatchAudio that seems to have pretty robust support for standalone audio playback. No RSS workarounds to transfer files, you just open the app on iPhone and Watch at same time and pick files to transfer. For audiobooks, resuming playback location is supported. Chapter support requires $4 premium purchase (I have not tried yet.) The free version is also limited to 15 files, which is fine if you mainly have m4b or complete single audiobook files.

‎WatchAudio

‎WatchAudio is a dedicated Apple Watch app for your audio files. ● Add audio files onto the Apple Watch app ● Play offline at any time ● Use the Apple Watch speaker or headphones ● Play by albums & artists ● Create playlists ● Select favorites ● Now Playing app support ● Play all & shuffle ●...

apps.apple.com