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207 points fjk | 5 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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krick ◴[] No.43935208[source]
How is the Android app? The only good app for local audio-books I know is "Smart AudioBook Player". The web-app GUI in the demo is less than perfect, but kinda ok, if you enable chapter-view. The biggest problem is a single set of ±10 s rewind buttons: for a dedicated audio-book player it's not enough, a separate ±1 min button set is a must. But since the authors didn't think of that, I don't expect it to be different in the Android app. I'm rather asking about mobile-specific features:

1. Does it properly stop the playback when headphones are disconnected?

2. Is there a usable lock-screen widget?

3. Does it auto-rewind after a pause? It's best when the pause duration is taken into account: it shouldn't rewind more than a couple of seconds if you pause for a second, but a whole minute may be better if you left it off yesterday.

4. Does it handle well situations when the server is not accessible? Can you just pre-download a couple of audio-books for your 10 h long flight? I mean, honestly, streaming is never desirable, the only point of a self-hosted server is that you don't have to download and delete your collection manually. It's a tricky problem when the playlist is highly variable (as with music), but for an audio-book player should be a non issue: just pre-fetch a whole book (maybe manually), storage space is a lesser issue than mobile internet.

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1. wing-_-nuts ◴[] No.43938060[source]
I run ABS on my laptop, and the main issue I run into is that when my laptop changes networks (i.e my vs my parents wifi), it completely breaks syncing. I wish you could set up a server and say 'this will be available on x,y, or z ip, try them all'

The android app does allow you to download audio books for offline listening, which I use a lot when driving. Unfortunately the 'playlist' doesn't seem to just autoplay the next book. I don't like interacting with my phone behind the wheel. Not sure if it has an android auto app or not.

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2. Valord ◴[] No.43938147[source]
Use tailscale or another private VPN to not suffer from changing networks.
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3. apitman ◴[] No.43938205[source]
The end-to-end principle would suggest this should be solved by the app and server.
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4. midasz ◴[] No.43939350[source]
It has Android auto, I've used it in a previous car and it's decent enough. Like the other commenter said - I'd install tailscale and connect via that.
5. dp-hackernews ◴[] No.43999489{3}[source]
If the server entry is by DNS name then all is well, if by IP address, then its not so flexible and will complain/not-work.

I think there are plans to rectify this behavior in a future release though.