Free audio book (expires July 2)

[swirly]

I do have to say the hoops one needs to jump through to actually download something through this service feels excessive, especially in a media environment of iTunes, iPods, and iPads. Needing to have an additional piece of software to listen to these books even through iTunes is frustrating and I doubt I will leave it installed longer than it takes to listen to the book.

I kind of felt this too. It seemed to be a hassle to download the software and then use that to get the book. I would have much preferred just being able to download one file that I used whatever player I wanted to play. Yet I also kind of understand why they do it the way they do. If you simply have a file you can play in anything then the file can be copied and shared. Piracy becomes an issue. Heck, I wouldn't even be surprised if doing things along the lines of how they do isn't required by the book publishers in order for the site to provide the books they do.

Of course I don't have any audio book experience so I don't know how other sites do it (assuming there are other sites for such). Maybe it is easier through them. I do actually entirely agree though that it was annoying to have to jump through the hoops and I too will delete the software after I'm done listening.

I kind of wonder how it works with other devices. I mean, surely you can play the files on things like an ipod which wouldn't really have their software installed on it. So at some point the file has to be made into some kind of easily transferable file right? Which makes me think the whole process is just overly annoying in the first place.