Self-Hosted Problem

Self-Hosted Problem

Byrichard

Yesterday I was already out when I noticed that I forgot to restart the audiobookshelf instance on my server before the run. I could either go home, start the server, and run, or I could just go for my run and use the normal app instead.

By normal app I mean using Audible’s app rather than Audiobookshelf. Luckily I have books that I am reading on both apps so I can listen to either one or the other, without having to sync the player to the right place.

One of the issues that I come across, after installing the apps on so many instances is that I do some things so that it boots with every boot on one system but not the next. The result is that if I reboot to move the Pi from one place to another I need to restart the services. If I had not moved the app I would have no issue. Starting audiobookshelf takes a few seconds. It’s just a matter of remembering.

On the other side of things I was worried that playing books or podcasts via Audiobookshelf would be complicated by the lack of a car app but this isn’t the case. If you’re parked somewhere with a phone or wifi signal you can queue the podcast or book you want to listen to, press play and it will play through the sound system. It’s more fiddly than using a car play app, but not by much.

And Finally

Audiobookshelf is a great app that I like to use daily, for podcasts and audiobooks. Once it is set up it works very well. It’s great that it keeps track of what we have listened to and downloads recent podcasts. It doesn’t have a way to automate the importing of books but that will come with time.

Audiobookshelf and Driving
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Audiobookshelf and Driving

Byrichard

In an ideal world I would use Audiobookshelf when I’m driving tomorrow. In the real world I can’t, or at least shouldn’t. The reason for this is simple. There is no iOS app which, in turn, means that there is no car play app. Combined this means that if I want to use the app during a road trip I need to fiddle with the app’s website when one podcast ends and the next begins.

Focusing on the Road

At 120 kilometres per hour you do not do such things. At 120 kilometres per hour you want the app you’re using to switch from podcast A to B to C automatically. You want this when you’re walking too. This is especially of walks on rainy days.

Long Audio Books

In my experience it’s better to find books that are seven or eight hours long, if you listen to books. Longer books will eventually give me headaches as I focus on the road and the book at the same time. It’s good to vary what you’re listening too, for focus, and for endurance.

No Pause during Driving Directions

Usually I use the GPS in silent mode. During most drives you have plenty of time to see the display change, understand what you have to do, and do it, without audio guidance. In the cases where you get audio guidance you want it to pause the podcast or audiobook. It’s frustrating to miss ten to fifteen seconds just because of a driving instruction

Setting Up a Playlist

I tried setting up a playlist but that is very slow. You need to add each podcast manually to the list, without the option to bulk add, and it doesn’t seem to auto-play the next podcast anyway.

Podcast or Book

When I walk and drive I like to listen to podcasts and books, so today I’m considering whether I will listen to books, or podcasts. In the past I have listened to two books during that drive. Tomorrow I think that I will start with podcasts.

And Finally

The web interface works very well and I am very happy with the app. When I get onto the testflight version of the app I will gain access to that functionality and then I will be able to use that app for road trips. For now I have to use the Apple Podcast app.

If it wasn’t for traffic I would set off now but it’s better to drive when the roads are quiet. That’s why I drive on Sunday mornings.

Apple Car Play and Roaming

Apple Car Play and Roaming

Byrichard

Several years ago I needed to download TomTom and I needed the latest map updates if I wanted to drive from Switzerland to England or from Switzerland to France, or to Spain. Thanks to roaming I now have a much broader choice.


TomTom was good in another era, when we had to pay roaming fees. We downloaded the relevant maps. We set off, and the GPS would guide us from A to B and that was that. I tried doing the same with Waze, hoping that the entire map would be downloaded when I set off, only to find that eventually I went off of the downloaded map and I had no more information due to a switch from Spanish to French roaming on a Swiss contract. I made it home, but it showed the limitation of roaming at the time.


Recently I drove from Switzerland to Spain, using roaming, but this time with 30 gigs of data on the current contract. I used just 200 megabytes, according to my recollection, with no issues. This was with Waze. Waze and Google maps are the same today, so I could just cut the middle app, and go straight for the behemoth. I can also play and experiment with Apple maps. They have had time to fix teething problems.


The issue that I have had with both TomTom and Waze is at night. Neither of these apps automatically switches to night mode. I couldn’t find that option. Driving at night, with a map in daylight mode is inconvenient. This is a good reason not to use both of the traditional apps, and move towards Apple Maps and Google Maps. Both have plenty of settings to make navigation less distracting.


I want to support TomTom Go because it is 12 CHF per year, and it’s European, but I can’t find a way to pay them directly, rather than going through Apple so I may drop them when the contract runs out. As to Waze, I lost interest the moment it was bought by Google, since it meant that we were helping a wealthy behemoth, rather than a small startup.


I have been playing with GPS since I was a child, but initially I was using hiking GPSs with no proper display. I then played with car GPS before moving on to mobile phones, and since a few weeks I have been playing with in-built GPS. I find the in-built GPS experience is easy, and I like that the passenger, I haven’t had a passenger, since we’re in a pandemic, can set up the routing options from the comfort of the phone. Concurrently, I can set off the nav system from my home, and then walk down, plug in the phone, and then use it for navigation, from A to B.


Back in the day I sometimes printed out instructions, to navigate… things have really changed since then. When you’re used to GPS apps navigation is simple. Now to play with two new apps, and see how they compare to the two apps I have prioritised, until now.