Listen to Audio Books Faster

I found a great tip for audio book listeners from Dwayne Melancon over at Genuine Curiosity. It seems Dwayne was stuck in the middle seat on a recent airline flight from Washington D.C. and he could not use his laptop. He decided to experiment with the audio settings on his iPod and discovered the following…

• Here is a tip for getting even more out of your audio books on your iPod (all of the models since the Mini, except the Shuffle):
  • You can change the speed of playback to “Faster” for audio books, and it will cut about 1/3 off the time that it takes to listen to the book. The iPod will adjust the pitch to make it sound mostly normal, too.
  • You can do this by clicking the center button a few times while the audio book is playing and you’ll see an option to set the playback to Slow, Normal, or Faster.

This is a great tip for those audio books that just seem to plod along or when you want to pick up the pace and walk faster. I tested this on my iPod mini and this is really cool for power walking. The quicker pace of the audio naturally helps you pick up your pace. Power walking burns more calories and you’ll definitely notice a difference in calories burned if you use an advanced pedometer with this feature.

Thanks Dwayne for the great idea… my fitness program just got a new boost!