Skybrite streams unlimited audiobooks to your phone or tablet
For $9.99 per month, the service lets you listen to your heart's content. Unfortunately, the library is on the small side -- for now.
There's a "Netflix" for just about everything these days: e-books, magazines, music and, of course, movies. Ah, but what about audiobooks? That's Skybrite in a nutshell; it's basically "Netflix for audiobooks," offering unlimited listening for a flat rate of $9.99 per month.
The service was born to be mobile, with apps for Android and iOS. You can browse the selection by Staff Picks, Categories and Contributors, and for any given title it's a one-tap affair to start listening and/or add it to your Favorites.
Unfortunately, for the moment Skybrite can only stream its content; there's no option to download for offline playback. But a company rep indicated that feature is definitely in development.
Also in development: more content. Right now, Skybrite's audio library is home to some 3,000 10,000 titles across a wide range of categories. These include not only expected ones like biographies, business, history and fiction, but also interviews, meditation, language learning, theater performances and stand-up comedy.
Even so, there's very little high-profile content to be found at the moment. Save for the "Hunger Games" trilogy, most of the titles in the Literature & Fiction category are from little-known authors, or are public-domain works like "Les Miserables." Not that there's anything wrong with that, but anyone hoping for mainstream, Audible-caliber selection will be disappointed.
Rabid audiobook listeners, however, may find enough material to make Skybrite worthwhile, and the company plans to expand its library considerably in 2015. (The rep indicated anywhere from 5-7 times more content by this time next year.)
You can try Skybrite free for seven days, and you don't need a credit card for the trial. Your thoughts?