Overall my experience with the new Apple iOS 5 on my iPod Touch has been a positive one. All of the main applications on the device are compatible and the device is still quite responsive and snappy. There is one problem that I have however…
OverDrive Media will not transfer my audio books to the device.
I love getting audio books from our local library. For a very small yearly fee I have almost unlimited access to downloaded audio books and ebooks. Up until now the copy protection on the audiobooks has not been a problem. Unfortunately Apple’s update to their iOS has changed that.
The OverDrive Media Console software on my computer can not transfer audio books to my iOS device.
After updating my iOS device to version 5.0 of the software I have lost the ability to transfer audiobooks from my PC to my iOS device. It’s a real pain and has yet to be fixed. I have also updated iTunes to the latest version, also without success.
In it’s forums OverDrive has acknowledged the problem, but has yet to remedy it. They claim to be working on a new version of the application that will once again allow the transfer of copy protected audio books to Apple iOS devices, but so far I’m still waiting. The software version listed on their web-site is still the same version I have on my laptop.
Hopefully in the coming weeks they will come up with a fix, preferably before my current rental of “Crush It” by Gary Vaynerchuck expires and I go back in the queue waiting for it to become available again…
I have had the same problem. Once I downloaded the new i OS 5 onto my ipod touch 4, I could no longer transfer books from Overdrive to my device. Then one book actually transferred parts of the book, but not the whole thing. The couple of parts that it transferred did not get transferred into the audiobooks location on my itouch, but into the playlist. I’m glad you posted this problem so that I know I’m not the only one. I hope they work out the bugs soon.
One more thing I forgot to mention. I contacted the Overdrive people about this problem. They suggested I download the free Overdrive Media Console app onto my ipod so that I can transfer books directly onto my device without going through itunes. I’ve heard people are still having problems transferring books this way. Also, it’s a little invconvenient having to find a wifi signal just to transfer an audiobook from the library. I transfer 2 -3 books a week so I’d have to spend a lot of time at starbucks!
I have the app on mine and it works well.
The problem though is that I am only able to download .mp3 audio books, other formats like .wma are not available. I downloaded three .mp3 audio books that way last night, but my library has a much smaller selection of .mp3 audio books than .wma books. .wma books still can only be transferred from a computer to the iOS device.
I have the app on my iPhone 4, but I haven’t tried it because the library offerings through the app are much smaller than via a web browser.
I have been able to transfer mp3 books from library to overdrive to my phone, but I’m finding my library has a much smaller selection of mp3 books. (plus the mp3 books are added to my music instead of my audiobooks, which I could live with…but preferred the old way much better.)
I have Windows in VMware Fusion, so that I can download WMA format audiobooks. Why does the library have so few mp3 books available, and hardly any modern ones! Since updating iTunes and Overdrive it’s a nightmare trying to get books downloaded. Might have to give up and start paying for them!
I am very glad to learn that I’m not the only one who has had problems since downloading the new Itunes update
The only reason I bought the IPod touch was to listen to audiobooks and I guess now I have to sit back and wait.
@gadzookz
Once you have the mp3 audio book in itunes, you can change a few settings so it shows up in your audiobook section, which I agree, is much better.
Find the book in itunes
Right click.
Select “Get info”
Select the “Options” Tab
Change “Media Kind” from music to audiobook.
I also select the options for remember playback position and skip during shuffling. If I’m shuffling music, I obviously don’t want a book section to start playing. Depending what it spits out, it could be embarrassing O.O
That should help with the mp3 books, at least.
For the wma, I’m back to using my sansa, which is irritating because I got the ipod touch to consolidate gadgets and now I’m adding another if I want to listen to a wma book.
It’s now the 21st of December. I’m going to test the wma’s again. Crossing my fingers for early Christmas cheer.
I was happily downloading library books to my classic ipod to listen to at work (yes, I get to listen to books while I work) Then I got the new ipod touch for Christmas. The books say the downloaded but weren’t on the ipod. The playlist was blank. I ended up loading my books onto the old ipod. I was reading site after site. I updated Itunes and updated overdrive media. I tried loading again on my ipod touch. I found the books in the BOOKS folder, but they weren’t on the BOOKS part of the ipod. I decided to drag the books from the books folder to the playlist and they are now on my playlist!! I ended up making a Library Book folder for my playlist to put all the books in. I hope this helps anyone else who was having the same trouble.
I have a similar problem to Kristy. I transferred books via overdrive (on my laptop) to my iphone with new ios 5 and they are not in the books or any section of the music app. if i search on my iphone i can find them and listen to them, but this is not a good solution as i’d have to keep a separate list of what books are on there! i don’t know how to get the books in to just itunes in order to try dragging and dropping as suggested… thanks!