Apple Music not only recently gained fame – ahem, I mean blame – for having one of the most confusing and cluttered interfaces in history, but the search really adds to this mess. In fact, the search is so bad, I was forced to create an additional list of links to access my beloved playlists. As a huge fan of anything related to Sherlock Holmes and crime audiobooks, I’ve been on a quest for quite some time now. How could I listen to an audiobook every other day without spending too much of my hard earned bucks? Since I’m a somewhat happy subscriber, I thought it might be worth it to try Apple Music to hunt them down.
The ever growing source of audiobooks
Yes, believe it or not, Apple Music has not only music but a great variety of audiobooks for your pleasure. Why you don’t tell us how many, you might ask? That’s indeed an excellent question, but I cannot put an answer to it. I doubt even Apple can, and I will show you why in a minute. Audiobooks are, in fact, a big deal for Apple Music. Especially since we know how much audiobooks cost and likewise how hard it is to find the tasty ones. So it’s safe to admit, I like what Apple Music has to offer. Nonetheless, it tells a lot that only recently I found out much more about it. It’s because the search didn’t come up with anything I could even remotely agree with.
Searching – and not finding
Search might have been the most obvious approach to unravel the excellent audiobooks you were looking for… but it isn’t. You will only find stuff for which you enter the right full term. Ready for an example? I know you are. Let’s start with the first thing that comes to your mind. It would be the term “audiobooks”, wouldn’t it? Wrong.
Even though it appears as somewhat successful, it doesn’t show anything interesting at all. Likewise, 80% of the results are music files. “Audiobooks”, considers the “s” at the end, which does more harm to the search!
So, what should I do instead you ask? Well, now you’re asking the right questions! Start with something you’re sure exists. That’s the hard part, I know, but I cannot provide better advice. Otherwise, trial and error is your remaining option. For me it was a little easier since I knew all along, Sherlock Holmes would have to be somewhere.
That’s what I call a full blown hit! Look at the listing in the search that points to the various series the iconic world class detective features in. Pat yourself on your shoulder dear friend, you just cracked the box that holds dear the beautiful world of audiobooks. From here it’s a lot easier to dig up the related stuff, which contains, for example, the following pieces:
Edgar Wallace (I’m German, though) Edgar Allen Poe Jules Verne Die Drei Fragezeichen (Yes, I know) Pater Brown Morgenstern
Those are all valuable audiobooks of excellent quality. They are heavily biased not only by my taste but even more by the fact that I’m a German guy. Even though it sounds like a bunch of work, it’s actually a lot of fun to follow along with the recommendations and discover something new every other minute.
Pro Tip! Watch out for regular updates to your beloved series. Each month there will be new episodes added to the already quite impressive lists of audiobooks.
Conclusion
Apple is obviously not too easy to tell, where the precious, high quality audiobooks reside. Quite understandable, since they want to make money on selling audiobooks within iTunes. However, digging up audiobooks is actually a lot of fun and a never ending stream of high quality audiobooks is there for your entertainment. Just take care of storing the new found gold nuggets accordingly. Playlists, and how to easily discover things similar to what you just listened to is far from straight forward in the Apple Music ecosystem. My 2 cents on that issue: copy and paste the links from the audiobook series into apple notes. Then you will always have an up to date view of your beloved pieces of entertainment! Happy digging, dear friends! Please feel free to comment and connect with me in any way you like and I will be more than happy to help.
