Apple has confirmed that a number of recently released audiobooks being sold on the iTunes Store will not properly play on iPods. The defective audiobooks — which include top sellers such as “The Four-Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss and “The Assault on Reason” by Al Gore — will reportedly play in iTunes, but refuse to play on any iPod, as evidenced by purchaser comments on the iTunes Store. Apple is now suggesting that iPod owners hold off on purchasing any new audiobooks from iTunes. After customers contact iTunes support, Apple is also reversing charges for purchased defective audiobooks.
“I apologize for this recent error with audiobooks,” an iTunes support representative said in an email to an affected iLounger. “Our engineers are aware that many audiobook files have recently been affected with this error and are working on a fix for this slight problem. I would advise to please refrain from purchasing any audiobook for at least a week while our engineering team works to implement a correction for this situation. The iTunes Store takes the quality of our audiobooks seriously and will investigate the issue with this one, but I can’t say when or if the issue will be resolved. Please try again in a few weeks.”