Audible Introduces Clips Feature

Amazon this week announced a new feature in its Audible mobile app that helps you share audiobook clips with others. The fun bit? It’s available for iPhone and Windows phones … But not Android.

OK, it’s of course “coming soon” on Android. But given how much bad news we see these days about Windows phone, it’s nice to be able to get a dig in from time to time.

Anyway. Thanks to a new feature called Clips—which I noticed being advertised in the app as I set out on my mid-day walk yesterday–Audible now has a way for users to share favorite passages from their audiobooks with others.

Clips is surprisingly full-featured: You can of can of course trigger a clip recording at any time, and when you do so, the 30 seconds leading up to your current position is clipped. But Clips also provides a nice Edit experience, so you can fine-tune the clip. This includes the length of the clip, though of course you can’t go for too long: The maximum length is 44 seconds.

Clips are stored in a new Clips list, and you can share them from there using email, SMS message, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, or any other share target supported on your phone.

Clips also work like bookmarks, so you can jump directly to that point in the audiobook anytime.

It’s a neat new feature for what was already one of my favorite mobile apps. And a good example of a mobile app that is updated regularly, even on Windows phone. (Unlike Amazon’s other apps, by the way.)