Audiobooks are getting more and more popular. The main reason for their success is the fact that they are more accessible than ever before. Various audiobook player apps are provided on the App Store and Google Play App Store to help you easily enjoy audiobook on your iOS/Android device. Which audiobook player should you choose? Don't worry. We have listed the most popular M4B audiobook players below.
What is the M4B Format?
A file with the M4B file extension is a MPEG-4 Audio Book file which are normally purchased from Apple's iTunes Store. And the audio in an M4B file is encoded with the AAC compression format and can, therefore, be protected with Apple's FairPlay DRM copy protection system in order to restrict access to only computers and iOS devices that have been authorized via iTunes.
Some people might be confused with M4B and M4A format. While the M4A audio format is basically identical to M4B except that those types of files are used for music instead of audiobooks.
Best M4B Player for iPhone and Android Phone
1. MP3 Audiobook Player (iOS)
MP3 Audiobook Player is a convenient app for listening MP3 and M4B format books on any Apple gadget. Simple and useful controls for listen to your audiobooks.
The simple interfaced player can adjust playback speed with the minimum effort. Special car-mode controls with big buttons. Supporting remote control from Apple and compatible headphones, bluetooth, Apple Watch!
2. Bookmobile Audiobook Player (iOS)
Bookmobile is designed to work with all audio files from iTunes, Audible, public library downloads, and other popular sources. The app features a thoughtful control scheme designed to keep you from easily losing your place and includes drive and sleep modes, as well as supporting background playback. You can adjust play order priorities, combine multiple files into one archive file for easier management, customize skip settings, and more. That said, Bookmobile works best with iTunes.
3. Librivox Player (Android and iOS)
LibriVox Audio Books offers unlimited access to over 24,000 free audio books. Each LibriVox audio book can be streamed over the internet or downloaded for later use without any charge.
The LibriVox audio book app makes it easy to find the book you want. You can even find books read by a favorite narrator. This app allows you to stop playback with a sleep timer, and unlimited bookmarks are available for each book. You can save and listen to as many books as you like.
4. Smart Audiobook Player (Android)
Smart Audiobook Player is designed specially for playing audio books. Although it boasts the same features you'd expect from any audiobook player, Smart Audiobook Player also includes: 1. Support for almost every audio format, including .m4b. 2. Built-in cover art searching and downloading. 3. Lock screen feature to avoid accidental chapter skipping. 4. Playback speed adjustment.
Although the features all work together to make an incredible audiobook player, by far my favorite feature is the speed control. By setting playback speed to 1.2x, the voices are still quite comprehensible, and you can cram more books into each morning commute.
5. Audible Audiobook Player (iOS and Android)
Audible is the largest and most advanced audiobook service in the world, offering exclusive titles, audio shows, and book series. And Audible's audiobook player offers solid playback features, with chapter navigation, bookmarks, a sleep mode, variable playback speed and multitasking support for background playback and downloading.
Audible player offers superior audio quality without interruptions, enables you to adjust the narration speed, and lets you quickly move forward or backward.
6. Audio Books Player by Audiobooks.com (iOS and Android)
Audiobooks.com also provides an audiobook app that allows subscribers to choose from a library of more than 45,000 audiobooks from every category.
Audio Books app offers variable playback speed, automatic bookmarking and a sleep timer. You can adjust narration speed, and chat with customer service from within the app. An interesting thing is the ability to add bookmarks and create notes with memos.
Best M4B Player for Windows and Macs
1. iTunes - Great auidobook player for Windows and Mac
iTunes is not only a good way to organize the music and TV show, it can also be a good audiobook player. You can easily manage your audiobooks in iTunes by artists, albums, songs or genres. You can both buy audio books through the App store and add your own audio books from your computer. iTunes can only support MP3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4, AAC and Apple Lossless file formats.
2. VLC media player - Simply the best lightweight multi-format media player
VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. If you want to play video or music files in just about any format, VLC media player is probably your answer. This program is also available for iPhone, Android, Windows and Mac. VLC media player is the most stable, flexible and lightweight audio and video player around today.
Bonus: how to play Audible/Nook/Kobo/Chirp/Storytel audiobooks on the above players
Not all of the above wonderful Audiobook players can play DRM-locked files, so if you want to play the encrypted Audiobooks with the above M4B audiobook players, you must remove DRM and convert them to M4B/MP3 with Epubor Audiobook Converters.
Conclusion
Now you have 8 useful M4B audiobook players and got an easy way to free M4B audiobooks from DRM protection. Just try them to make your audiobooks enjoyment more wonderful!
Amy Lopez crafts informative articles on eBooks and eReaders, uncovering optimal methods to enhance your eBook reading experience, and eagerly shares her findings with you.
VLC media player is fine. I'm using it for a while to listen to audiobooks on my computer. But the only problem I faced with it is that everytime I close the app and open it, it loses its previous place and the audiobook starts playing from the beginning.
Is there any way it can be fixed?