Nokia Audiobooks was just updated, download here.

This was mainly a bug fix release, bigger changes and improvements in the pipeline…

Nokia Audiobook Manager, the PC application for Nokia Audiobooks concept, has been updated to 1.03.

Based on your feedback, the team has made a few improvements and bug fixes:

Change log V 1.03:

- Progress bar works now correctly also for the first converted file

- Corrected CD ripping problems: retry did not work

- Audio volume of converted books is increased for having easier listening in noisy environment

- “Audiobooks” directory now created to memory card if it does not exist, this was causing false error for not having enough space in memory card

Download new version here.

On behalf of Nokia Audiobooks team, thanks everyone for your feedback!!

Now, this looks promising. The guys from Nokia Research Center have built a beta concept that I really like:

Nokia Audiobooks is a beta concept that enables you to enjoy audiobooks while on the go. It includes a highly efficient audio compression technology optimized for voice (AMR-WB), a player application for S60 (Nokia Audiobook Player), and an audio converter tool for PC (Nokia Audiobook Manager). Whereas traditional music player applications are optimized for music, Nokia Audiobook Player is optimized for audiobooks, enabling you to browse chapters, set bookmarks, and automatically continue from where you last time stopped listening.

A typical 400 page novel translates into a 10-20 hours long audiobook, which would traditionally take more than dozen CDs or hundreds of megabytes of low-quality MP3 files. Nokia Audiobooks uses a codec called AMR-WB, which is optimized for voice. With Nokia Audiobooks, you will get 5-10 times more content to your phone with similar voice quality, compared to content compressed with MP3 at 64 or 128 kbps.

I’ve been listening the book Master and Margarita, and I really like it. You want to try this too.

Download here.

As always, please send your feedback either privately to the feedback form, publicly to the comments section of this post, or by writing your thoughts at your own blog! (just link back, and we’ll hear about it)
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Ps. I did’nt add 2D barcodes pointing to download links this time, because I haven’t been able to figure out an easy way to keep them up-to-date…