TortugaPower
Playing books directly from the Apple Watch
Not really requesting but I have to ask: is it possible to stream through my Apple Watch with cellular?
Or do I need to sync the mp3s to my Watch?
I just want to leave my phone at home.
We do make efforts that should make it possible to sync Libraries between devices, including the Apple Watch.
Involved complexity:
- not everyone uses MP3s, in fact we encourage usage of M4B containers, which can easily reach hundreds of megabytes in size
- syncing has to happen locally via wifi, as sending gigabytes over the internet won't work for all users
- We need additional UI that shows sync state
- Apple Watch apps are always a bit finicky
Given these, we are not ready yet to support this. It will be possible, we want to have it, but it will take a lot of work to complete. If you can, feel free to contribute 🙂
Let's keep this open, just because we can't do it right now doesn't mean we won't be able to do it in the future 🙂
on our part we haven't had the chance yet :/, not sure if in one of the forks someone is working on it though
I've been dreaming of Audiobooks to work on AppleWatch before I found BookPlayer for the longest time. I'm still building my dev skills and not at the point of touching Swift / Watch Dev. Currently working on learning projects with React Native.
If there's a fork or anyone who wants to start tinkering maybe we can find a solution :)
I think we can break this up in steps
1.- Transfer the file from the app to the watch (this could be an extra option in the options menu for each row) 2.- Handle the AVPlayer equivalent inside the Watch app, if it's the same class, then refactor the PlayerManager class to be made available in some way in the shared library between the main app and its extensions 3.- Handle syncing, the Watch already has access to the same Core Data objects as the main app, but since Watch OS 2 (I think) both the main app and the watch app, can't share a single core data DB
To expand on the last point, since the Watch app currently functions as a remote controller, the current sync strategy, is to serialize the library (only some fields for each class are serialized I think) and then the reference is replaced in the Watch, and the list re-rendered. This would have to change 🤔
@GianniCarlo Sounds like a solid approach 👍 If we are on the path of thinking of a new sync strategy let's build the right thing.
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We should optimize the data going to the watch db. BookPlayer already feels slow at times. I used it on Watch3 and now Watch5. Watch5 has 32GB capacity but Watch3 only had 16GB.
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Will need to create UX/UI for data management. Example being how Audible does it now. For instance the sync time is very long with Audible and syncs the entire book. Given that BookPlayer allows personal files which can vary in size depending on quality. Optimizing the file before a sync would be ideal.
I'd like to see being able to select which chapters to sync from iPhone App. Does the current architecture prevent that from happening?
🤔 if by chapters you mean individual mp3s, then it shouldn't be a problem. Regarding how to do it, when selecting multiple items at once, we should change/add a new button in the bulk controls that are floating at the bottom, to open up the options sheet, which should allow the option to do this sync if possible
Just found you guys by googling "best audiobook player apple watch". This issue has the feature that I would love! Right now I'm syncing things through the Apple's native Books app and it's a pain in the butt. Would absolutely love this feature! I imagine that it can be tricky as even Audible is having problems getting syncing to work seamlessly.
Appreciate y'all working on this project.
FYI, wifi syncing over Wi-Fi seems to be much faster for > 100 MB files and that should be a default over bluetooth if it's an option. Audible still has this messed up and I need to disable bluetooth in order to sync via wi-fi.
@GianniCarlo
So I'm thinking from the chapters page, you can do a swipe to toggle which chapters you want to sync.
Then from the options page for each book / playlist you can trigger the "Sync to Watch"
@jonleung That's an interesting find, thanks for the input! Will have to test that myself.
Hi guys, this is the only feature that BookPlayer lacks for me and holds me back from using the app and yeah, as others said it would be huge, I really want to be able to leave home with only the apple watch. So, I wanted to know, how's all this going, could you tell us the progess? (this feature would make it the PERFECT app atleast for me heheh)
Any progress on the project in general can be seen in our Git commit history. TLDR; there is none yet, as we didn't have time to work on it and are currently focussing on reworking the UI and the underlying file system to provide a foundation for a better sync feature which in turn will make it possible to work on the Apple Watch device sync.
To speed things along, we can recommend Installing Xcode, jump into Swift and contribute to BookPlayer yourself. This is a free and Open Source project after all. We do understand that people would enjoy this feature. We also must accept that this app is not a commercial product but something we create as a hobby. We do however appreciate the passion our users bring to the table, it's mind blowing how much people care and enjoy this little project.
Yes I was intending on working on this feature but I have acquired a new job and no longer have the time to contribute.
On Mon, Sep 7, 2020 at 1:28 AM Florian Pichler [email protected] wrote:
Any progress on the project in general can be seen in our Git commit history https://github.com/TortugaPower/BookPlayer/commits/main. TLDR; there is none yet, as we didn't have time to work on it and are currently focussing on reworking the UI and the underlying file system to provide a foundation for a better sync feature which in turn will make it possible to work on the Apple Watch device sync.
To speed things along, we can recommend Installing Xcode https://developer.apple.com, jump into Swift https://developer.apple.com/swift/ and contribute to BookPlayer https://github.com/TortugaPower/BookPlayer/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md yourself. This is a free and Open Source project after all. We do understand that people would enjoy this feature. We also must accept that this app is not a commercial product but something we create as a hobby. We do however appreciate the passion our users bring to the table, it's mind blowing how much people care and enjoy this little project.
— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/TortugaPower/BookPlayer/issues/464#issuecomment-688159281, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AC3OXKU5ZRGKKAAB42K4OA3SESKSDANCNFSM4NDSFD5Q .
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That is the beauty of Open Source: No obligations. 🙂 Congrats on the new job! 🎉 Always good to hear people are making it through these times.
@GianniCarlo
So I'm thinking from the chapters page, you can do a swipe to toggle which chapters you want to sync.
Then from the options page for each book / playlist you can trigger the "Sync to Watch"
@jonleung That's an interesting find, thanks for the input! Will have to test that myself.
I hope someone gets this function. It would be awesome
@crozo5 it will be ready when it is ready. Keep in mind that BookPlayer is not a paid application and will always be Open Source in its core. We work on this whenever we can, but it does not yet pay for our food or the roof over our heads even though we are grateful for the donations which help to divert some of our time to continue the project.
To repeat my sentiment from earlier in this issue: If you want to see a feature done right now, you can buy additional Apple devices, download Xcode, learn Swift and start building. We do accept Pull Requests on this platform after all. Pushing for dates is - simply put - impolite.
@GianniCarlo Great news! 🔥 Looking forward to it. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait a long time
@GianniCarlo might we be getting a little bit closer to seeing this? Thanks!
@kmander Ive been looking into extracting an optimized version of the PlayerManager so it can be reused between the iOS and watch app, but to be honest I haven't been able to focus 100% on this, as I've been looking into some issues with the cloud feature that's been reported, and on improving caching when streaming the audio (which will ultimately benefit the watch experience as well).
I'll update when I have something workable on a beta, but yeah, this is pretty much on my mind every week 😅
Thanks for taking a moment to reply @GianniCarlo. I'm sure you have a huge to-do list of other seemingly super important features to work on too! Here's hoping that we can look forward to seeing more Watch functionality sometime soon :)
Maybe I'm daft. But what can I do with the Watch app? I can see a Audiobook in "Recent" but can't do anything with it. I can only play it through my iPhone and have to bring it along :-(.
@BJKle right now it just works as a remote controller, where you can adjust almost all the settings like with the player screen on the iOS app (I missed adding the sleep timer in there)