I got annoyed with imported audiobooks on iPhone, so I built my own player - and now it's the best audiobook player out there (if I do say so myself)
I’ve listened to audiobooks for years, and one thing that kept bothering me was how clunky it felt on iPhone if you wanted to listen to audiobook files you already had.
So I built Bloox.
It started as a side project for myself, but it turned into something I use every day. The core idea was simple: make imported audiobooks on iPhone feel good instead of hacked together.
A few things it does:
- easy import from Google Drive and iCloud Drive
- audiobook-focused playback with resume position, sleep timer, speed control, and smart rewind
- on-device transcription
- character tracking / bios for books with big casts
- on-device recap for when I zone out and need to get back into the story
One thing I’m particularly happy about is that the AI-ish features are done on device, so I don’t have to build the whole thing around cloud costs.
It’s live here:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bloox-ai-audiobook-player/id6759511972
Would love feedback, especially from people who listen to imported/local audiobook files and have been annoyed by the current iPhone options