Category: Audiobooks

About two months ago, Google Play Books picked up the ability to play audiobooks natively and overall, the experience was pretty good.  But Google is wanting to make the experience better, especially when audiobooks are played in conjunction with Google Assistant.

First, you now have what Google is calling Smart Resume.  When you are interrupted by something on your phone and you need to pause your audiobook mid-sentence, when you return, Smart Resume will rewind you back to the beginning of the word or sentence you were on so you can pick back up where you left off.  Prior to this update, you had to manually rewind so this make that feature far more helpful.

After accidentally leaking the news over the weekend, Google has officially announced that audiobooks have come to Google Play Books.  The update requires that you have the latest version of the Play Books app for both Android and iOS, which is version 4.0 for those on Android.  Once you have it, you will be able to listen to your books on your phone or tablet.

Even better, Google has fully integrated the experience with Google Assistant and Google Home, meaning you can tell Assistant to read a book to you and it will read it on your Home.