How to play audiobooks on our Apple Watch

In addition to music or podcasts our Apple Watch can also play the audiobooks we have purchased from Apple Books. With watchOS 6 the app Audiobooks arrived on our watches, let’s see how to use it.

First of all, please note that the playback of content on our Apple Watch must necessarily be done via bluetooth headphones . Whether it is an AirPod, a Beat or a third party headset. The first thing we will do is connect them to our watch.

Difference between Library or On the iPhone”

Unlike the Music or Podcast app that allows us to listen in streaming , the only way to listen to audiobooks is by downloading them previously . We can download them to our iPhone, iPad or Mac. In the case of the Apple Watch, by its nature, we can listen to both the audiobooks downloaded on the watch, and those downloaded on our iPhone. In general, for battery reasons, we will choose to play them directly from our Apple Watch. The steps are as follows:

1. We opened the Audiobooks app in our Apple Watch.
2. We use the digital crown to move to the top.
3. Choose Library (or On the iPhone).
4. We choose the audiobook we want to hear.

Once we are playing the audio book, the controls that appear on the screen allow us several actions:

• We have the information from the chapter, as well as from the book we’re listening to at the top.
• In the central part we find the play button. When playback is active, the circle around it indicates the playback process.
• The right and left buttons allow us to move forward or backward 15 seconds of playback.
• The fan-shaped button at the bottom left allows us to choose which headphones to connect to.
• The central button at the bottom allows us to choose the chapter we want to play.
• The 1x button allows us to decide the playback speed.

It is important to mention that the covers we see under the option Library correspond to recent reproductions or items in the list “To read” . If we find the audiobook we’re interested in in this section, we can play it directly, although sometimes some items are missing from this list .

How to synchronize audiobooks with our clock

If we miss a particular audiobook by following the steps above, we can easily add it from our iPhone. We will follow these steps:

1. We put the Apple Watch in its charger.
2. We opened the Watch app on our iPhone.
3. We go to the My Watch tab.
4. We play in Audiobooks.
5. Click on Add audiobook…
6. We choose the audiobook we want to synchronize.

Once the audiobook appears in the section of the library two things can happen. If it appears without a cloud symbol after its name, it indicates that the book is already on our clock. If it appears with a cloud, the audio book is waiting to synchronize. In this second case, after a few minutes, the audio book will have synchronized and we can use the previous steps to listen to it on our Apple Watch.

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And it’s that simple. The next time we want to listen to an audiobook directly on our Apple Watch we’ll be clear on how to do it.