Amazon's Audible app for audiobooks has had a resurgence on Windows Phone of late, but in recent days its Windows 8 counterpart has faired much worse with support for it coming to an end.
But, while the app is no longer supported and can't be downloaded from the Windows Store, it appears not to be all bad news. Word is that the app is being rebuilt to launch for Windows 10
One Windows Central reader received this message from the Audible UK team:
"Unfortunately the Audible App for Windows RT is no longer supported. We are currently working on a rebuild which we expect will support Windows 10 when that launches. I appreciate this must be disappointing. As a workaround you should be able to use the Cloud Player from the Library section on the site. This is reliant on an internet connection however, so you won't be able to play a book whilst offline through the Cloud Player. I apologise for any inconvenience this causes but I hope this information helps."
It seems not a week passes of late where we're not hearing of abandoned support for either Windows or Windows Phone. It would have been great if Amazon had kept this app running, but it obviously has its reasons for shutting it down. The silver lining is that it appears to be only a temporary thing, and hopefully later this year we'll have a shiny new app for Windows 10 pumping stories into our ears.
If you've got a Windows Phone, though, you can still use that to get your offline fix on the go. It just recently got updated, again, so for now things are still firing on all cylinders in that camp. Grab the Windows Phone version from the store link below.
Thanks Andrew for the tip!
Reader comments
Audible for Windows 8 is gone, but it's not all bad news
The new WP app is spectacular.
At least they are coming back.
I'm just hoping for a Google+ app, the web wrapper app at the moment is so so slow.
The W8.1 app has not been working for a couple months now, so I'm not shocked that it was removed from the Store.
It was working perfectly for me! I can't see hy the bad reviews....it was magic!
It would probably help if Microsoft didn't seem to gut and rebuild how applications are built for their mobile platforms every few years. Hopefully now that apps will be universal between windows across all screens this won't be as much of a problem in the future. I can understand why they would not want to maintain seperate apps though.
Jeebus, when I first read this I thought it was referring to the phone version, which just got some updates that make it really good (finally). WHEW. I bought a used iphone recently (I have been icurious for a while) and was *shocked*, shocked I tell you, to discover that the iPhone app is...really not so hot. I can't believe you can't purchase books from the app. In fact, I can't believe it even as I type it. I even checked the store to see if I had accidentally downloaded a third party app by mistake. And I fully expect someone to correct when they read this post. But off topic, proceed.
They don't sell through the app because if they do apple grabs a 30% cut of the money.
I tried to download it two days ago on my tablet as I bought an ebook and it had the audio book attached. In the end I streamed it by Bluetooth to my soundbar from my windows phone and listened to it that way. What a shame though.
Another
your avatar is perfect for that statement.
Is this the first RT app to stop being supported? So their rebuilt app will only work on Windows 10? What do they think every single Windows 8.1 desktop, tablet, or Surface RT user is going to upgrade to Windows 10 right away? That's just lazy support. Why is that we have awesome universal apps like Tweetium, Tubecast, and hopefully Rudy's upcoming 6tag version 5 that are universal and still work on RT and Windows 10? Well maybe they will all lose support for RT.
I wish I could tell my users that sorry we are going to finally upgrade our Website from ASP Classic to .NET, but will take down the site for 6-12 months while we rewrite the applications.
Id like to know this as well. I've heard conflicting reports about whether RT will even support the Universal apps in Win10 with the supposed 'RT refresh' that is incoming. Has there been any further info on that front from anywhere?
So Windows 10 apps are not backwards compatible with Windows 8/RT, then? What about the other way around? Do Windows 8/RT apps need to be updated to work on Windows 10?
Windows 8 app it's not necessary Windows RT app. You can have a Windows 8 app that only supports Intel processors x86 and doesn't supports ARM chips. But I don't know if Windows 10 apps will be automatically available to WindowsRT, I think that still the same if the devs implement that way, yes, if they doesn't, no. It's a good question.
There's a bad answer to the good question you asked.
Thanks for the link. So Windows 10 apps will not work on Windows 8/RT, according to Gabe. But what about Windows 8/RT apps working on Windows 10? I guess I'm worried that the Windows 8/RT Store will become an absolute ghost town. Developers aren't going to port and then maintain both versions, but not all developers will port all apps, so many Windows 8 apps will be stranded, right?
im not sure that's a definitive answer from Gabe Aul, in so much that the question was weighted to Win Phone 8 in the first place. Gabe gave a stock answer but the RT situation is more nuanced. My surface 2 like everyone else's never ran Windows 8/8.1 it runs Windows RT- I already know that it wont receive W10. I would think he wouldn't be in a position (yet) to clarify the details regarding the upcoming RT refresh that has been mentioned several times. This is still unanswered as far as im concerned.
Audious...
All is not lost, can still get the manager and play it through iTunes on PC.
Amazon is another of "those" companies that are so afraid of Microsoft they will make any excuse not to support its devices. Despite their own total failure in the mobile phone space, Amazon still won't release an app to allow WinPhone acres to Amazons cloud storage.. As a result, OneDrive users have ability no reason to bother with it.
Their business philosophy is outmoded, and Win 10 will nail shut their opportunity to gain users among Windows fans.
Actually I feel like Amazon is quite supportive of MS. The Audible, Kindle and Amazon shopping app were some of the first ones available on Windows 8 and they've been available from the beginning on Windows Phone 7.
I agree with Novron. But only now that the audible app had been updated so that it works again. The support from audible has been great well. I just emailed about an issue and they responded the same day. I wish the kindle app had a choice of fonts though as it is not very dyslexia friendly at the moment
How about that Prime app for Windows/WP? It's awesome!
Yeah, that's true. Forgot about Prime. I guess Amazon has some work to do.
They don't care for the Windows platform...they're only interested in delivering apps that sell products - Kindle sells books, Amazon apps sells everything, Audible sells audio books.
Prime Video/Music doesn't sell anything - they're one-time (annual) add-ons to the Amazon account, so they don't care to release those to Windows users - I wouldn't count on seeing those anytime in the near future.
Doubtful, seems more like a piracy fear. There is a prime video app on the XB1. Works great, been catching up on a lot of series I missed over the years.
Glad to see my tip made it to print :)
I wonder if this is true for other Apps. I noticed the Windows FT app is no longer supported. Let's hope they come back with a Win 10 App. After all why not? It seems they could just recompile their iOS or Android Apps. I wonder if company developers, like those at the FT know this. Amazon, yes. I would expect them to know this, but the FT, not so sure.
It's not just recompile.
Sadly the 'magic' tool will work only for the simple apps.
If you try to do bit more (read/write to db, security, access cloud storage, ...) then simple recompile will not work.
The elephant in the room is supporting/updating the live app.
Not all develops are willing to learn VB.NET/C#/.NET framework.
They'll learn anything if they can make money, otherwise they will be swept aside. Also I don't think Candy Crush is a simple app.
Windows 10 <3
That would allow for it to run on an XBox One which would be neat for the living room.
Now if only Prime Video would make a Windows 10 app too...
Yeah really, prime music and video support across w10.
Their photo storage app is something id like to see on wp
If you have an XB1, why aren't you using the Prime Video App already on it?
It's my most-used app on the Xbox One, and to me, is very well put together.
Wish we had warning for things like this, I was meaning to download it this week after getting back into the app after the WP update. Now I won't have the chance until W10 at the earliest.
Yes, Lumia storage check beta is the one of the important apps that I missed.
Never understood why companies have to "take down" the existing app to build a new one :/ Its not like a house or anything. Or am i missing something?
They have to support it behind the scenes. With a huge developer like Amazon you'd have thought the resources would be there, but evidently they felt it better to just remove it for now.
They never supported it that much anyways, so why now? I know that you're just as disappointed as i am, still, hard not to wonder. Liked the way Truecaller did it though. They just came out of nowhere with their new app, for the second time. :D
The app sucks, so, users post bad reviews. They preferred to remove the app and publish a good and new version instead of leave the bad app there.
The app has improved a lot recently. I works great, even on my lowly 635. A lot of the reviews out there are sadly out of date.
We are talking about Windows 8 app.
I suppose the main reason is that 3.1 rating star. Anyway...A new windows 10 app!
I know right. Mytube was rebuilt from the ground up without having to pull the app. Why can't this big corporation do that?
You publish an old app but you never support it so users keep complaining and you have to keep explaining...
When you have one team (like Microsoft did our still do) it works on either this or that (new OS version or security updates), you have limited resources.
So the simple solution is instead of explaining all the time is taking it down. It's the logical thing to do.
As for people who are looking for it you might either request the old version directly from them or looking for that version on the web.
What would be nice is a host for removed apps we could sideload.
The windows phone version never got pulled and before the update I couldn't pause a book and just go back to reading later I had to delete it re download it and I also had to cancel sync or it wouldn't play so I had to bookmark alot more often because I knew I'd probably be deleting the book to listen to it again... Apps being pulled is a frustration for me in general it's like they don't get that a buggie or none updated app is better then no app