Audible - purchasing and listening to audiobooks using the Audible app with VoiceOver on iPhone and iPad

The Audible audiobook service

Audible is the audio book service owned by Amazon.  It is accessed through an Amazon account.  The Audible app is the best way to use the service on an iPhone or iPad. Within the app, purchased books can be read and the huge Audible library can be searched for titles which can then be added to your wish list or purchased. Audible books can be purchased in one of two ways.  You can  purchase individual books at list price when you want them. Alternatively, you can subscribe to buy one or more credits monthly or buy 12 or more credits annually. A credit can be used to purchase any audio book regardless of its list price. When last checked, March 2026, there were multiple subscription options. The one credit per month Premium Plus subscription costs £8.99 per month. The subscription can be ended or later resumed as you wish within reasonable limits. Lower subscription rates are available if you buy 2 credits per month or pre-pay annually for 12 or 24 credits. Credits can be stored as long as you like while you remain a subscriber but they must be used to purchase books before your subscription ends if you decide to cancel your subscription. What Audible calls a standard subscription is also on offer at £5.99 per month. This lets you select one book per month and you can read all of your selected books while you remain a subscriber but lose access to them if your subscription ends. Another factor to consider when you decide whether or not to subscribe is that Premium Plus subscribers are often offered substantial reductions on the list price for non subscribers. Sorry, it's a bit complicated but I think the take away is that subscribing often makes sense and you can always end your subscription when you have the books you want. Please check audible.co.uk for current subscription details and for the range of books available. 

The Audible app

The Audible app is fully accessible using VoiceOver but can at first be confusing to VoiceOver users so I've tried to give enough detail to assist you in familiarising yourself with the app. There are occasional minor changes to the layout of the Audible app and the way VoiceOver controls it. I try to keep the notes current, but I may have missed some changes.  If my instructions don't match precisely what happens, then please experiment and use your judgement.

You will need to sign in to the app with an Amazon account or create a new account.

When books are purchased they will appear in your personal library. Your library is stored on Audible's servers and books only need to be downloaded to your phone or tablet when you want to read them and can be removed from your phone or tablet when finished.  Audible also offers many free books in the Audible Plus list which are available only to Premium Plus subscribers. These can be streamed, that is played without downloading, but this requires an internet connection whenever you read the book.  However, free books from Audible Plus may be added to your library and downloaded for reeding and I recommend that you do this so you can be sure to be able to read your book when you don't have a good or unlimited internet connection. If you cancel your subscription then free Audible Plus books will no longer be available and must be purchased at list price if you wish to read them.

Quick tour of the Audible app for blind users

The Audible app has two screens, the main screen and the player screen.  

The main screen offers several functions including browsing through book recommendations, searching for specific titles, authors or genres, , purchasing books, managing your library and selecting your next book to download and start reeding. The main screen also offers a mini player section with limited book playing controls. 

The player screen offers the full set of controls for the playback of your current book including, play / pause, jump back and forward, navigation by chapters, narration speed change and a sleep function which limits the duration of the playback to your selected time to avoid missing too much of the book if you fall asleep while listening. 

The main screen

The main screen has four tabs at its base on iPhone and four corresponding buttons in a side bar on iPad. These are Home, Library, Discover and Profile. These tabs display four different screens with different functions.

Books can be found using the search button at top right of the Home, Library and Discover screens. Books may also be found using the recommendations on the  Home screen or Discover screen . When you locate a book that interests you, double tap and this will open the book's information page. You can swipe through this page and you will find options including purchasing the book for 1 crredit or for the full list price. Choose your option and complete the payment if you chose to pay full price. The book will appear shortly in your library.

The Home tab

The Home screen offers several sections preceded by headings which may include headings like "recommended for you", "next up in your series", "bes tsellers" and so on.

VoiceOver users will  find it helpful to skip through the headings using the headings position on the rotor and then, when you find an interesting heading, swipe right through the list that follows.

The Library tab

The Library screen offers several ways of viewing your library of purchased and Audible Plus books. If you have a small library, you can ignore the viewing options but they can be very helpful for navigating large libraries. The options are laid out quite well visually but take a bit of effort to understand for VoiceOver users. By all means ignore them but it's worth persisting if you have a large library.

The first button at the top right of the Library page is a search button which may be used to search Audible's catalogue by author or by book title. Books which are already in your library will normally appear at the top of the list of search results and you will be told that they are in your library. Although a list of results appears immediately after the search text is entered it seems to be important to use the search button which will be at bottom right of the keyboard. Failure to do this can make it impossible to open some books in the list of results.

The search button is followed by 4 tabs near the top of the Library screen which may be used to determine the way the library is presented and also to restrict the items shown by various criteria. The "Listen" tab shows lists of titles under headings like "continue listening" and "recently added". The "Audiobooks" tab will show the books in your library. The Audiobooks tab at the top of the Library screen is described in more detail below. The remaining tabs at the top of the screen are for viewing Podcasts and Lists, which includes a list of your books by categories and any lists you have created yourself. 

The Audiobooks tab in the Library screen

When this is selected  filter buttons appear below the tabs which can be used to filter displayed titles, for example to show only titles that haven't been started or titles that have been downloaded. Turn these filters on or off with a double tap.

Below the filters is a count of the displayed titles resulting from your choice of filters. VoiceOver can sometimes speak some confusing hints when it encounters this item. If you ignore this and swipe right to progress to the next item it will be the first title in the list with a play or download button, depending on whether or not it is already downloaded.

The list of titles can be ordered in several ways and this is obviously important for large libraries. Return to the count above the first title in the list. If you are using VoiceOver, once you have heard the count, swipe up with one finger. You will first hear "Select" which lets you select multiple titles on which to perform an action, perhaps to remove downloads. Swipe up again and you will hear how the list is being sorted. If you want to change the sort order, double tap and you will be presented with choices which include recent activity, length, title and author. Double tap the sort order you want to use.  If you aren't using VoiceOver there will be sort order and select buttons visible for you to use.

When VoiceOver is focused on a book title in the library list, you can swipe up or down to hear the available actions. These may include download, play and a context menu. Having located download, double tap to begin the download. After a few seconds, the book will be ready to play. Swipe up again to locate "play" or "activate" and then double tap to begin playback. Once playback has been started, it can usually be paused and resumed with a two finger double tap. The player and mini player offer more playback controls and are described in a later section. The context menu offers a large number of options including title details, view series which will show all the books in a series and many more options.

The Discover tab

The Discover screen is all about finding your next book to be purchased. It offers several ways to browse the Audible catalogue, including by category and author.

The Profile tab

This page gives information about your account, your listening history and the number of unspent credits. It also lists the number of purchased books you have and the number of badges you have acquired.  Badges are reading achievement badges. In my opinion they don't add a great deal to the Audible experience.  

The player and mini player

On all of the 4 main screens, a "mini player" is positioned just above the tabs on an iPhone and at the base of an iPad screen. This gives access to the book currently being read. The easiest way to locate it on an iPhone is to slide a finger upwards from the bottom centre of the screen until you hear "mini player" spoken followed by your current book title and your reading position. With VoiceOver focused on the mini player you can swipe up to hear the "play" and "jump back" buttons and then double tap to activate them. Alternatively double tap on "mini player" to open the full version of the player screen., which offers several different ways to control listening. At the top left of the player screen there is a "close," button which will collapse the player back to the mini player and return to one of the tab screens. Next come Share and Playback Destination buttons followed by a "more menu" button. This reveals a menu with several options. An option that may be of interest is the "player settings" button  which lets you change the behaviour of the jump back and forward buttons by selecting from a range of times up to 90 seconds. After the menu button comes the image of the book's cover, followed by a button which displays the chapter you are currently reading. This button can be used to display a list of chapters from which you can select a chapter to read. The chapter button is  followed by location information. Next come the chapter backward, jump back, play, jump forward and chapter forward buttons. The lowest row of buttons are for narration speed, to speed up or slow down the speaker, a "Car mode" button which changes the visual appearance of the player screen to make it easier for drivers to operate, a "sleep timer" button that offers choices of times and also end of chapter for playback to end in case you fall asleep. The final button is "clip" button. This adds a short clip of the book at your current reading position to your personal stored clips. You can return to your clips using the menu button at top right of the player screen.

To summarise, the Audible app offers a lot of sophisticated control for those who want it but many users will overlook all the sophistication and just get on with enjoying the book. A two finger double tap will normally resume and pause book reading. If that doesn't work, open the Audible app and locate the mini player near the bottom centre of the screen and swipe up to find the play button and double tap. Some readers may prefer to open the player screen and leave the app on the player screen while they are reeding a book and cloze it only when they need to acquire or select the next book to read using the main screen. In the player screen, the play button is easily located near bottom centre of the screen.

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last updated 19 March 2026