No matter where I go, be it work, vacation, or travel, I am never without a book. While sometimes my job and other events may eat up my time, there is always a paperback, eBook, or audiobook tucked away somewhere for me to read or listen to in those quiet moments.

Now for those of you who do listen to audiobooks, the development team behind Think-4-U Music Player created this simple player for all of your DRM free audio files in certain formats. In terms of features, Bumblebee Computing enhanced their original PlayBook version to give users a pleasant BlackBerry 10 experience.

Recently granted their Built-for-BlackBerry designation, they have not only given users a the ability to listen to their library effortlessly but integrated with librivox.org, to give users access to the vast source of books to download and listen to instantly. Of course all of these audiobooks are part of the free public domain but due to the sizes of the files, I recommend users turn on WiFi before downloading.

The purpose of StoryTeller is to access and play the audiobooks stored in the books folder on your device or SD card. It does so with a clean interface that is easy to use. You can easily find the book and chapter where you left off as each of the novels are sortable by name, author, or chapters for quick access and it automatically saves your place. Additional features include the option to enable album art, gestures to switch between books and chapters, a sleep timer, and being able to pause/play, and jumping ahead or back.

Features

  • Auto-bookmarking: It will automatically save off where you left-off. There's no limit to how many books it can auto-bookmark
  • Auto-resume: Upon app restart, it will come back to the same book and bookmark that you left off, so you don't have to remember
  • Auto-sort: Books with multiple sequential chapters are sorted in the expected order so that they can be played one after another without manually having to pick the right one after each chapter
  • Easy importing: There's no importing step. It'll find all the supported files in the "books" folder and display them for you to select
  • Formats supported: Support for mp3, wma, aac, m4b (non-DRM)
  • Album art enabled: mp3 are parsed to extract album art/book images
  • Easy Navigation: Gesture enabled (swipe left/right) to quickly move from one book to another; tap on screen to toggle play/pause
  • Global instant Search: Search box conveniently accessible so that when you start typing a letter, it'll start giving you a list of all your books that match that search. In fact, that becomes a dynamic play list that you can then play each book in the result one after another
  • Playlists: There's a built-in favorites list so that you can easily play all your favorite books in a playlist. If there is a set of books that you like to listen to often, you can group that in sub-folder under the books folder, and each of these sub-folders will become a playlist
  • Delete supported: Once you are finished with a book and no longer want to keep it on your BlackBerry there's a convenient delete button available.
  • Sleep Timer: Fall asleep to your favorite books. Set the sleep timer to an interval of your choosing

If you already own, the PlayBook version than updating will be free. However, please note that there are differences between the PlayBook app and the BlackBerry 10 app that you should be aware of. While the PlayBook one does not have the refined UI of the other, it does offer the ability to create favorites and playlists. What it lacks is the integration with Librivox. These minor differences aside, this minimalistic player gets the job done.

While I would there to be a way to collapse the listing of each individual chapter or show them in sub-folders on BlackBerry 10, StoryTeller is a clean player that works flawlessly so that you can effectively listen to your audiobooks while multitasking.

For a limited time in the US the application is on sale for $0.99 (regularly $1.99).

More information/Purchase StoryTeller Audiobook Player

Read more