Audible.com, Amazon’s audiobooks platform, has redesigned its iPhone app and introduced its first iPad app. According to Audible, more than 20 percent of the company’s customers already use Audible’s iPhone app on the iPad.

The new iPad app is designed for the tablet’s large screen. The app has large images and makes it easy to browse the library browsing and listen to audiobooks. The iPhone app has been redesigned to improve the listening experience. In addition, the app’s new layout highlights cover art. It lets you browse multiple titles at the same time, while accessing the app’s library management features.

Audible has been pushing to expand its catalog over the past year with the introduction of Audible.com’s Audiobook Creation Exchange, an online audiobook rights marketplace and production platform that helps authors and publishers realize audiobooks. The exchange grew 10x in 2012.

Audiobooks.com has changed its model for its audio book rental subscription service and is moving away from a Netflix-like model of all-you-can-listen to a pay per play program. The site is now offering two options. The first plan lets members access one audiobook a month from the website’s library of more than 25,000 titles for $14.95 a month. The second plan lets members access two audiobooks per month for $22.95.

Prior to introducing this new model, the company offered an all-you-can-stream model for $25 a month. “Our research shows that most audiobook fans listen to one or two audiobooks a month,” explained Ian Small, general manager of Audiobooks.com, in a statement. “Our new plans are tailored to give these audiobook listeners the best value for their dollar. We encourage potential customers to check out competitor prices – they’ll quickly find that we’re offering the best value with the most convenience, delivering great listens instantly, anywhere, including on Apple and Android smartphones and tablets with free apps.” Read more

Ever wish you could listen to your favorite webpage while driving or catch up on AppNewser posts while working out at the gym?

The new SoundGecko app lets you save a copy of a webpage as an audio file. Simply visit this address and paste the URL of an article into the “Try it now” box. The service also features an iPhone app and a Google Chrome extension for easier listening.

Check it out: “SoundGecko is a text-to-audio transcribing service that lets you enjoy written content from around the web on the go without distraction. Be free from screens as you listen to articles by simply sending an email or pressing a button in your browser … Connect your Google Drive or Dropbox account and SoundGecko will automatically place a copy of the MP3 audio file on your cloud drive so you can listen at home, at work and on your mobile.” (Via Maria Popova)

When it comes to support from developers, Windows Phone has long been one of the less popular platforms. That trend looks like it might be about to change. Amazon has just released a new app for Audible, their audiobook subsidiary. WP users can now buy and download from a catalog of over 100 thousand audiobooks. Read more

Simply Audiobooks launched a new service today; they’re planning to do to audiobooks what Pandora and Spotify have done for music.

I think of audiobooks as content I download, but here’s something new. Rather than selling audiobooks, Simply Audiobooks has decided to try a streaming service. For $25 a month users are offered unlimited access to a collection of 11,000 audiobooks. You can listen via an HTML5 web app; most browsers are supported including Android and Safari.

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The SF publisher Apex Books has just announced its first 2 audiobook releases are now available from Iambik Audio. You can buy them now as DRM-free MP3s.

An Occupation of Angels, by Lavie Tidhar, is a murder mystery set in a world with real Angels. When one is murdered, the protagonist is ordered to find out how and why.

Open Your Eyes, by Paul Jessup, is a love story between an exploding star and a young universe.

Apex Book

A new audiobook publisher has just opened its doors today. eBook Voice is a small operation that wants to bring a personal touch to making your audiobook. Right now the total staff consists of just the founder, Morgan Barnhart, but she is looking to expand.  She’s willing to work with all sizes of projects.

image by Leo Reynolds

Today marks the opening of Audiobook Creation Exchange, Audible’s newest project.

This is more than simply an audiobook publication platform. It’s designed to bring together authors (who want to release their books as audiobooks) with the actors, studios, and publishers that are needed to make it happen.ACX also enables automatic distribution to major audiobook stores like iTunes, Audible, and more. And it really is designed to recruit all the participants. There are active registration buttons for everyone from authors to narrators and studio pros.

Do you know what this is? Amazon is side stepping publishers again and going straight to the authors. Of course, Amazon has owned an audiobook production company for some time now, but this is the first that it’s reached out to authors directly.

What would Superfly, Saturday Night Fever and The Graduate be without the music? Good movies, but something would be missing. Musicians have long seen the potential of partnering with filmmakers to release work, so what about partnering with authors?

The rise of enhanced eBooks offers musicians and writers a new avenue of creative expression, potentially. Imagine reading a new Jennifer Egan book with its original soundtrack by Sonic Youth. It would give a whole new meaning to the term audiobook.

It could help authors find new readers and bands find new listeners. Plus the music videos could be about characters from the book, making author promo videos a lot more interesting instead of just another talking head author shot.

What do you think?

The book and eBook distributor Ingram Content group has recently formed a partnership with Recorded Books, an audiobook publisher and distributor. Ingram will provide Recorded Books with access to its extensive collection of 14 thousand audiobooks from nearly 80 publishers. Recorded Books will then be able to distribute a significant and broader selection of titles to libraries through its OneClickdigital™ platform.

David “Skip” Prichard, President & CEO, Ingram Content Group, had this to say: “Digital audiobooks have rapidly gained in popularity over the last few years due to the widespread availability of devices and the convenience. We are thrilled to collaborate with audiobook leader Recorded Books to expand the availability of e-audio to listeners worldwide while simultaneously helping publishers and libraries deliver more content to more readers in more formats.”

The new content expected to be available by the end of June.