Led project to move audiobooks from iTunes to iBooks on iOS

• As part of the iBooks design team, I was given the lead role to take audiobooks out of iTunes and into iBooks on iOS
  • Goal: provide ways to help listeners find their place, whether in their listening or navigation experience
  • From displaying waveforms to other zany ideas, we came up with a solution that would deliver on both audio and visual cues

Features patented

Opening audiobook drops a "session marker" dot in the timeline

Opening audiobook drops a "session marker" dot in the timeline

Scrubbing the timeline shows 1) distance from the "session marker", and 2) HUD showing new playback time in the chapter

Scrubbing the timeline shows 1) distance from the "session marker", and 2) HUD showing new playback time in the chapter

Visual affordance in the Table of Contents shows where you started this playback session, and tapping on the session marker will snap back to when you first started; all in service of helping you find your place

Visual affordance in the Table of Contents shows where you started this playback session, and tapping on the session marker will snap back to when you first started; all in service of helping you find your place

Play/Pause functionality for the last-played audiobook is preserved even when closing the player, allowing users to navigate to other parts of the app; audio fades in at a rate commensurate to how long you've been away

Play/Pause functionality for the last-played audiobook is preserved even when closing the player, allowing users to navigate to other parts of the app; audio fades in at a rate commensurate to how long you've been away

Cover art skip navigation provides a gross-level affordance suitable for say, the gym or in the car; visual and audio feedback account for eyes-free navigation

Cover art skip navigation provides a gross-level affordance suitable for say, the gym or in the car; visual and audio feedback account for eyes-free navigation

(Still) the only  media player app that has landscape orientation… on both iPhone and iPad!

Works on CarPlay too!

Impact

• Released a ton of relevantly useful features for media playback navigation

  • To date, this is the only native media-playing app that has session marker, rollback and cover art navigation features, as well as landscape orientation support for both iPhone and iPad

    Apple Moves Audiobooks into iBooks App, Adds Chapter Select in iOS 8.4 Beta

  • Awarded 2 patents:

    Media playback navigation

    Media playback navigation

• Helped Podcast.app and  Developer.app teams identify the more effective timeDomain: AVAudioTimePitchAlgorithm for better-sounding high-speed playback (optimized for speech)

© 2024 Eugene Siew | Confidential