iLounge

Although iTunes began with a focus primarily on music, it wasn’t long before it expanded its capabilities to include support for other types of audio content, including audiobooks and community-authored episodic audio content known as podcasts. As iTunes continued to expand its support into other media types and the iTunes Store grew in popularity, video podcasts became supported as well, and the availability of a wide variety of podcasts on different subjects expanded dramatically.

Today, the iTunes Store provides a catalog of thousands of audiobooks and podcasts covering just about every possible subject you can imagine. Last year Apple further expanded the iTunes Store catalog of podcast-type materials by adding iTunes U, a massive collection of free educational material from various academic institutions for students, teachers and the general public.

For the most part, iTunes handles podcasts, audiobooks and iTunes U content separately from your primarily music and video library, placing them in their own sections in iTunes and providing distinct options to manage these files within iTunes and sync them to your Apple media devices. This article provides information for both the beginner and experienced iTunes user alike for getting the most out of your audiobooks, podcasts and iTunes U content.

Audiobooks

iTunes supports commercial audiobooks both in the Audible.com or in iTunes’ own AAC format. Note that unlike music content on the iTunes Store, most audiobooks purchased from the iTunes Store and all audiobooks from Audible.com are DRM-protected. As with music, you can import your own audio files as audiobooks, a process that has become much more streamlined with recent versions of iTunes.

Purchasing Audiobooks

iTunes and iPod compatible audiobooks may be purchased online from either the iTunes Store itself or from Audible.com. As mentioned earlier, all audiobooks from Audible.com and most audiobooks on the iTunes Store are protected by iTunes’ Digital Rights Management (DRM), unlike iTunes Store music purchases which are now all DRM-free. Audiobooks purchased from the iTunes Store come in the protected AAC format and have the same DRM restrictions are other types of iTunes content, basically meaning that they may be played on up to five authorized iTunes computers and an unlimited number of iPod or iPhone devices that are synced with one of those five computers. Audible content, on the other hand, carries a tighter set of restrictions: only three computers may be authorized to play back Audible content, and you authorize and deauthorize your Audible.com account separately from your iTunes Store account.

Audiobooks purchased from Audible.com are not downloaded directly into iTunes. Instead, you must either use Audible’s own download manager to automatically import these tracks into iTunes, or download them manually and import them into iTunes yourself as you would for any other audio file. Further, unlike your iTunes Store account, there is no “Authorize Computer” menu option for Audible; you are simply prompted to enter your Audible.com username and password the first time you attempt to import or play an Audible audiobook. Keep in mind also that since Audible authorization is separate from iTunes Store authorization, if you’re planning to reinstall your operating system or upgrade or sell your computer, you will need to de-authorize both you iTunes Store and your Audible.com accounts separately. The option to de-authorize your iTunes Store account is found under the Store menu in iTunes, while the option to de-authorize your Audible account can be found at the bottom of the Advanced menu in iTunes.

Most of the audiobooks available on Audible.com are also available on the iTunes Store, and the main advantage of using Audible will be for those users who listen to a lot of audiobooks, as Audible offers subscription packages that work out more economically for avid audiobook listeners. On the other hand, you can purchase audiobooks on the go from the iTunes Store on your iPhone, iPod touch or Apple TV, whereas Audible.com content needs to be purchased on your computer and synced from your iTunes library.

Note also that audiobooks purchased from Audible.com may be played in iTunes and on the iPhone and iPod, but are NOT compatible with the Apple TV.

Importing Audiobooks

iTunes also allows you to import your own audiobooks into your iTunes library in much the same way as for your own music tracks. Older versions of iTunes made importing these audiobooks into the proper section in iTunes a relatively cumbersome process involving external conversion tools, but the good news is that as of iTunes 8 it has become considerably simpler to do.

With iTunes 8 and later, audiobooks can be imported into iTunes in any supported audio format. These files will end up in your “Music” section by default, but you can easily categorize them as Audiobooks simply by selecting the newly-imported tracks and choosing File, Get Info from the iTunes menu. This brings up the track information dialog box. From the Options tab, you merely need to change the “Media Kind” field to “Audiobook.”

Note that you may also want to enable the options for Remember playback position and Skip when shuffling as shown above. These settings are enabled by default for audiobooks purchased from the iTunes Store and allow you to resume listening to your audiobooks where you left off either in iTunes or on your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV. Further, this playback position will be synced between all devices that are automatically syncing with your iTunes library, allowing you to begin listening to your audiobook on your iPod, for example, then pick up where you left off on your computer after syncing your iPod.

The Skip when Shuffling option is similarly desirable to prevent audiobooks from coming up when shuffling large music playlists or the entire content of your iPod.

Both of these options are actually forced on for content purchased from the iTunes Store or Audible.com and you actually won’t be able to turn them off. Further, audiobooks that were manually converted to the M4B format to be imported into older versions of iTunes will also inherit these settings.

Another advantage of having your own audiobooks listed in the proper “Audiobooks” section is that you will be able to vary the playback speed for your audiobooks on your iPod or iPhone.

Note that some audiobooks that you obtain from other sources may consist of multiple files for each chapter of the audiobook. If you are importing an audiobook from CD, you can easily join the tracks together into a single audio file in iTunes itself by using the Join CD Tracks option found on the iTunes Advanced menu when importing the CD. To do this, simply select all of the tracks on the CD within iTunes and then choose Advanced, Join CD Tracks from the iTunes menu.

When importing the CD, the selected tracks will be joined together and imported as a single audio file in your default import format. Note that this will not add any chapter markers to your imported audiobook however, so you may want to look at a third-party utility for this purpose. There are a couple of good software utilities that can merge multiple-file audiobooks into a single file for you and convert them into a proper audiobook with chapter markers. Two good third-party tools for this purpose are Audiobook Builder by Splasm Software (http://www.splasm.com) for Mac users, or MarkAble from iPodSoft (http://www.ipodsoft.com) and its companion Chapter Master product for Windows users. Both of these tools can handle the entire process of joining separate audiobook files together, converting them into an iTunes-ready audiobook file and importing them right into your iTunes library.

Managing Audiobooks

Once in your iTunes library, management of audiobooks is relatively straightforward. The Audiobooks category in the iTunes source list will display a view of all of the audiobooks in your library which may be shown as a list or in Grid or Cover Flow views. Grid View has the advantage of automatically grouping multi-file audiobooks into a single entry, based upon the Album tag.

Other than their placement in a separate category, audiobooks are managed in much the same way as music tracks, and can be sorted, re-tagged and organized in the same manner.

Synchronizing Audiobooks

Synchronization of audiobooks to your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV is similarly straightforward. iTunes does not provide any audiobook-specific synchronization options, instead choosing to include your audiobook sync options alongside the options for syncing music content. For the iPhone and iPod, an “Audiobooks” playlist can be found at the top of the Playlists section. Selecting this will simply sync ALL audiobooks in your iTunes library onto your iPod or iPhone.

Alternatively, you can build your own playlists of audiobook content and select them for synchronization with your iPod or iPhone, or select audiobooks by the “Artist” or “Genre” fields in your iTunes sync settings. If you’re managing the content on your iPod or iPhone manually, the same rules as for management of music tracks also apply—simply drag-and-drop your audiobooks from your iTunes library onto your iPod or iPhone in this case. Protected audiobooks purchased from the iTunes Store have the same limitations as other iTunes DRM-protected files: They may be synced to any number of iPod or iPhone devices from one of your five authorized computers, but you can only store content from up to five iTunes Store accounts on any single device. Audiobooks purchased from Audible.com work in a similar manner, although the limits in this case are a maximum of three iTunes computers and a maximum of two different Audible.com accounts per device.

The Apple TV is a bit of a special case when it comes to audiobooks. Firstly, you will not find an “Audiobooks” playlist in the Apple TV sync settings. To synchronize audiobooks to your Apple TV, you will either need to sync all content from your iTunes library, or build playlists for your audiobooks and select these playlists for synchronization. That said, however, any audiobooks in your back-end iTunes library will be accessible on your Apple TV as long as iTunes is running and you have not opted to only show the items synced on the Apple TV in your Apple TV sync preferences.

The other limitation with audiobooks on the Apple TV pertains to content from Audible.com. For whatever reason, the Apple TV does not support Audible.com audiobooks at all, and you will not be able to transfer these audiobooks to the Apple TV or play them on the Apple TV from your iTunes library. Only audiobooks that you have purchased from the iTunes Store or imported from other sources can be transferred to the Apple TV.

Audiobooks with Remember Playback Position enabled will also sync their current playback position between iTunes and any other devices using automatic synchronization. Note that purchased audiobooks and audiobooks converted to the M4B format via third-party tools will have this option permanently enabled.

Varying Playback Speed

On the iPhone and iPod you can adjust the playback speed for your audiobooks. This option is found under Settings, Audiobooks on the iPod classic, Settings, Playback, Audiobooks on the current iPod nano models. On the iPhone and iPod touch, you can adjust the speed of audiobooks during playback by tapping the screen to bring up the extra controls and tapping the “1X” button in the top-right corner to toggle between double-speed playback, half-speed playback, or normal speed playback.

Podcasts and iTunes U

The most common source of Podcasts is the iTunes Store itself, which provides a catalog of thousands of audio and video podcasts. Unlike most iTunes Store content, podcasts are completely free. In fact the iTunes Store really only provides the directory of podcasts; the actual podcast episodes themselves are not stored or provided by the iTunes Store, but are rather downloaded directly from each podcast provider’s own servers.

For the most part, Podcasts and iTunes U Collections are handled in a similar manner. However, unlike podcasts, iTunes U content is provided only through the iTunes Store itself. Note also that while most iTunes U content is freely available, there may be items that are restricted only to students and faculty of particular educational institutions; the iTunes U service allows campuses to host their own internal iTunes U sites exclusively for their own students. This content will generally not be visible at all to iTunes users that are not part of those particular campuses.

Although iTunes U was first introduced to the iTunes Store in late 2006, these materials were originally treated by the iTunes application simply as podcasts. It was not until the recent release of iTunes 9 that iTunes U Collections received their own distinct category in iTunes.

Downloading Podcasts and iTunes U Collections

In spite of Podcasts and iTunes U content now having their own separate categories in iTunes, they continue to be managed in mostly the same way. You can browse for content of both types within the iTunes Store, and choose to either subscribe to an entire podcast or iTunes U series, or simply download individual episodes that may interest you.

If you choose to subscribe to an entire podcast or iTunes U series, the most recent episode is downloaded immediately and iTunes checks daily for any new episodes and downloads them automatically. Any older episodes that are available in the podcast series will appear below the most recent one but are not downloaded automatically. You can download additional episodes of the podcast by clicking on the Get button beside each individual episode, or simply click Get All to download all available episodes.

If you choose to download individual episodes instead of subscribing to the entire podcast, these episodes will appear in the appropriate section in iTunes, with a “Subscribe” button in the heading to allow you to easily subscribe to the entire series if you later choose to do so.

With its extremely large catalog of podcasts, the iTunes Store is the most common place to find podcasts, but you can also easily subscribe to any individual podcast directly. Some podcast providers will have links on their own web sites to subscribe in iTunes with one click, or alternatively if you know the direct URL of a podcast you can subscribe manually by selecting Subscribe to Podcast from the iTunes Advanced menu and typing or pasting in the podcast URL.

iTunes U content, on the other hand, can only be obtained from the iTunes Store itself, although it is also free to download. Note that you do not require an iTunes Store account to download either podcasts or iTunes U content, except for any iTunes U content that may be restricted to your own campus.

Managing Podcasts and iTunes U Content

Although iTunes 9 now separates iTunes U content into its own section, this only applies to new iTunes U subscriptions; any content in your library that was acquired prior to iTunes 9 will remain in the podcasts section unless you download it again or manually reassign it to iTunes U by changing the Media Type in the file options. iTunes will inform you of this the first time you subscribe to or download a new iTunes U item after upgrading to iTunes 9.

Podcasts and iTunes U content are organized into their own respective sections in iTunes 9, but each is managed in much the same manner. Episodes are organized into their respective podcast or iTunes U series, and the view can be collapsed or expanded to display the individual episodes below each heading. Audio and video content is organized in the same section, with video content being indicated simply by a video icon beside the episode. Note that some podcasts or iTunes U series’ may include both audio and video episodes; these will be organized under the same podcast subscription heading.

iTunes keeps track of which podcast or iTunes U episodes you’ve listened to or watched, indicating unplayed episodes with a solid blue dot and partially-played episodes with a half-filled blue dot. The number of unplayed episodes is also displayed beside the “Podcasts” entry in the iTunes library source list on the left.

Podcast and iTunes U listings can also be viewed in Grid View and Cover Flow views. In Grid View, the number of new episodes within each subscription is shown as a blue badge count over the artwork. Note that this number represents the number of new episodes and does not include partially-watched episodes.

Buttons at the bottom of the screen allow you to subscribe or unsubscribe from a selected podcast or iTunes U subscription and adjust your settings for how many episodes to download or keep for each subscription. Clicking the Refresh button will check your subscriptions for any new episodes.

The Settings button at the bottom of the screen will open a dialog box where you can adjust your Podcast or iTunes U settings, depending on which section you’re in.

At the top of the settings dialog box you can specify how often iTunes should check for new episodes: hourly, daily, weekly, or manually, with the default being daily. The lower section allows you to specify how many episodes should be downloaded when new episodes are available and how many episodes should be retained. For new episodes, the options are Download all, Download the most recent one or Do nothing and are fairly self-explanatory. The Episodes to keep option allows you to choose to keep either all episodes, all unplayed episodes, or the most recent 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10 episodes.

You can also override these settings for individual subscriptions by choosing a specific subscription from the Settings for drop-down menu, deselecting the Use Default Settings option and choosing specific settings for that particular subscription.

The options for iTunes U are identical to those for podcasts, with the exception of the references to “iTunes U” in the dialog boxes.

You can also exempt specific podcast or iTunes U episodes from automatic deletion. This can be particularly useful if you want a podcast or iTunes U subscription to normally only keep the last few episodes, but find one particular episode that you consider worth keeping around longer. To do this, simply select the individual episode that you would like to retain, right-click on it, and choose Do Not Auto Delete from the context menu which appears.

Note that this option will change to Allow Auto Delete when right-clicking on an episode that has already been exempted from automatic deletion.

The auto-delete settings can also be applied to an entire podcast or iTunes U subscription. If both options appear on the context menu, this indicates that some but not all of the episodes in the series have been exempted from automatic deletion. Choosing either option will change the setting for all of the episodes in the current podcast or iTunes U subscription.

Exempting an entire subscription from automatic deletion in this manner is basically the same as adjusting the custom settings for the subscription to keep all episodes, and was the only way to do this prior to the custom podcast settings being introduced in iTunes 8.

Another useful option that can be found on this context menu is Show all available episodes. This option will refresh the podcast to show all episodes that are currently available from the podcast feed. Episodes are not actually downloaded, but are displayed greyed out with a “Get” button beside each allowing you to retrieve any specific episodes from the feed.

Note that iTunes will stop downloading new podcast episodes automatically for any podcasts that you have not listened to in at least five days. This is presumably to prevent your library from getting cluttered with podcast episodes that you don’t regularly listen to, however some users who may want to collect episodes for infrequent listening may find this to be annoying. Simply selecting these stale podcasts and initiating a manual update by right-clicking and choosing Update Podcast from the context menu will resume regular automatic downloads until the next five-day cycle elapses. Mac users who would rather see this automated can check out the Update Expired Podcasts AppleScript at Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes, which will force regular batch-updates of all of your podcasts.

Synchronizing Podcasts and iTunes U Collections

Syncing podcasts and iTunes U collections to your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV is handled through specific tabs in your device sync settings in iTunes. As with other Podcast and iTunes U settings, these two sections function in essentially the same manner.

You can choose to automatically sync a specified number of episodes, unplayed episodes or recent episodes of either all of your podcasts or iTunes U collections, or from specifically selected collections. Episodes selected for synchronization automatically will appear pre-checked and greyed out within the selection list, and you can also choose additional specific episodes to sync from each podcast or iTunes U collection.

You can also sync podcast and iTunes U content based on playlists. Note that the Include Items from Playlists option only appears if you actually have playlists containing the appropriate type of content, and only those playlists which include that content are shown.

Podcast and iTunes U sync settings are independent of whether or not you have your iPod or iPhone set to manage content manually. In other words, you can choose to manage your music and video content manually while still synchronizing podcasts and iTunes U collections automatically.

Listening to Podcasts and iTunes U On The Go

Any podcasts synchronized to your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV can be accessed from the Podcast-specific section on the device. If you have created playlists containing podcast episodes, you can also play this content directly from these playlists in your “Playlists” menu. Click-wheel iPod models separate out audio and video podcasts into the Music and Videos sections, respectively, whereas the iPhone and iPod touch do not make this distinction—all podcasts are grouped together on these devices and are simply played as appropriate. Video podcasts on the iPhone and iPod touch can be viewed in either landscape or portrait orientations.

All current iPod and iPhone models now provide specific support for iTunes U content separately from podcasts. When syncing iTunes U Collections to older iPod models, audio items will simply appear in your iPod Music section and video items will appear alongside your Movies. This is also the case when synchronizing iTunes U Collections to the Apple TV—despite the recent Apple TV 3.0 update, iTunes U Collections do not receive their own category on the Apple TV, and will simply appear amongst your movies or music depending upon whether they are video or audio episodes.

The iPhone, iPod touch and Apple TV also provide visual indications of which episodes you’ve listened to using the same blue-dot indicators found in iTunes itself: A blue dot indicates that the episode is completely new, a half-filled dot indicates that you have listened to part of the episode but have not finished it, an the absence of a blue dot means that you have listened to the episode all the way through. Like audiobooks, podcasts are set to remember playback position by default, and therefore your current playback position in a given podcast episode will sync back to iTunes and sync out to any other devices connected to your iTunes library.
You can also vary the playback speed of audio podcast and iTunes U episodes on the iPhone and iPod touch. This works in the same manner as it does for audiobooks: Simply tap the artwork to bring up the extended controls and tap the “1X” button in the top-right corner of the iPhone or iPod touch screen to toggle between double-speed, half-speed and normal-speed playback. Note that this option is not available for video episodes.

Other options available during podcast or iTunes U playback include a button to skip backward 30 seconds and a small envelope icon in the top-left corner that can be used to e-mail out a link to your favorite podcast via the iPhone or iPod touch Mail application.

Note that older iPod models may still exhibit different behaviour when playing back podcasts from playlists. A common problem encountered here is that only a single episode will play back at a time from a given playlist. This is most often caused by the iPod having Shuffle mode enabled; since all podcast episodes are set to “Skip when Shuffling” an iPod in shuffle mode would effectively have no other episodes for playback once the current episode ended.

Downloading Podcast and iTunes U Episodes on the iPhone and Apple TV

The iPhone, iPod touch and Apple TV all provide the ability to browse for and download podcasts directly on the device. On the iPhone OS devices, podcasts are delivered via the iTunes Store app, while on the Apple TV they can be browsed for and downloaded from the Podcasts menu. The iPhone and iPod touch also provide a “Get More Episodes” link at the bottom of your existing podcasts that will take you directly to the podcast in the iTunes Store app so that you can check for and download additional episodes.

Note that on the iPhone a Wi-Fi connection is required to download individual podcast or iTunes U episodes over 10MB in size, although these same episodes can be streamed live over a cellular data connection. Further, there is presently no way to actually subscribe to a podcast or iTunes U collection from the iPhone, iPod or Apple TV. You can only download individual episodes to play on your device. Episodes downloaded to your device will transfer back to iTunes during the next sync operation, however, and if you are not already subscribed to the Podcast or iTunes U Collection, it will appear in the appropriate section with a “Subscribe” button beside it in the same way as downloading an individual episode directly within the iTunes application itself.

Managing Audiobooks, Podcasts and iTunes U Collections with Smart Playlists

Although iTunes 9 provides some greatly expanded sync options for transferring your content to your devices, these built-in options are not without their limitations. Most notably, automatic synchronization of recent podcast and iTunes U episodes remains a global setting. For instance, you can choose to synchronize the 3 most recent unplayed episodes of ALL of your podcasts, but there is direct method for selecting five recent unplayed episodes from one podcast and 3 recent episodes from another.

Since iTunes allows playlists containing Podcasts and iTunes U content to be synchronized automatically along with the automatic settings, users with more advanced requirements can turn to Smart Playlists as a means of dealing with these special cases. Smart Playlists can collect and group podcasts based on much of the same criteria used for other kinds of media content, allowing simple or complex Smart Playlists to be built depending upon your specific needs.

For example, you can easily create a Smart Playlist that simply includes the 5 most recent unplayed episodes for a given podcast:

Smart Playlists can also be used to automatically group recent podcasts into a single playlist, useful if you regularly listen to the same content during your morning commute, for example:

This playlist can be further refined to include only audio podcasts that are under a certain length:

An advantage of using Smart Playlists in this manner is that you can easily group several episodes from different podcasts into a single playlist for listening on your iPod or iPhone.

Podcasts and iTunes U episodes can also have star ratings like any other track in your iTunes library. Although the new iTunes 9 sync settings allow you to manually specify certain episodes to sync to your device, using ratings can be another useful shortcut for flagging those episodes that you might want to keep around.

In this case you would simply rate your favorite podcast episodes with five stars and they would be included in this Smart Playlist. If this Smart Playlist was selected for synchronization to your iPhone, iPod and/or Apple TV then these episodes would remain on your device even if they no longer met the automatic recent or unplayed criteria in the main sync settings.

Under the Hood: How Audiobooks, Podcasts and iTunes U Collections are stored

Prior to iTunes 9, the organization of non-music content in the underlying file system seemed almost an afterthought. iTunes began its existence as a music-centric application, and as a result other content types were never stored in a particularly logical fashion. For instance, audiobooks were stored in folders named by artist in the same way that music content was stored, and a “Podcasts” folder was simply added into the “iTunes Music” folder structure alongside the artist folders.

iTunes 9 has now introduced a new Media Folder organizational structure which properly subdivides your media content by media type, resulting in far less clutter at the top level of the iTunes Media folder. Audiobooks, Podcasts and iTunes U contnet are now stored in appropriate folders by content type, with Audiobooks further subdivided by artist (author) and Podcasts and iTunes U content organized further into sub-folders by Podcast or iTunes U Collection.

New libraries started with iTunes 9 will get this media organization layout by default. However, if you’ve upgraded from a previous version of iTunes 9, the previous storage layout is retained for backward compatibility. You can easily convert to the new layout, however, simply by using the Organize Library option found on the iTunes File menu. More information on this can be found in our article on Transferring your iTunes Library

Caveats, Limitations, and Conclusions

Although support for audiobooks and podcasts has been around for years, it remained mostly stagnant until iTunes 8, which made some nice improvements in allowing podcast settings to be managed on an individual basis. Likewise, it is only in the past couple of years that iPod and iPhone support for podcasts has become more stable and consistent in terms of how podcasts are organized and played back on Apple’s portable media devices.

Unfortunately, the addition of iTunes U to the mix has created some new problems. Although iTunes U Collections are really just a slightly different form of podcast, the support for iTunes U outside of iTunes 9 itself and the latest iPhone and iPod touch platforms is not as consistent as it should be. Despite adding an iTunes U sync tab in the Apple TV 3.0 update, it was odd to see no specific support for iTunes U content added to the device itself, a problem further exacerbated by the fact that any iTunes U content in your iTunes library appears instead in the Movies and Music sections of the device.

Overall, however, we’re encouraged by the recent developments to improve the overall accessibility of podcasts and iTunes U content by allowing iPhone and iPod touch users to download them over-the-air and improving the general organization and management of this content in iTunes itself and on the iPhone, iPod touch and Apple TV.

Next: Ask iLounge 11-13-09

Previous: Ask iLounge 11-6-09

If you have a comment, news tip, advertising inquiry, or coverage request, a question about iPods or accessories, or if you sell or market iPod products or services, read iLounge's Comments + Questions policies before posting, and fully identify yourself if you do. We will delete comments containing advertising, astroturfing, trolling, personal attacks, offensive language, or other objectionable content, then ban and/or publicly identify violators.

Name:

Email:

Remember my personal information

Subscribe to this discussion. We'll update you whenever new comments are added.

This is to help us deter automated comment spamming.
Please type the characters exactly as you see them in the image below:

What's new at iLounge? Subscribe to iPodweek!
Each week we giveaway three (3) iTunes Gift cards.