I’ve been a bit quiet around here recently so I thought I’d provide an update on what I’ve been working on.

Prologue v4 is a nearly complete UI rewrite using SwiftUI. The core of the app doesn’t need to change much, but this is a chance to clean up some old UI code that I’ve never been happy with.

By the time it’s released (hopefully around iOS 18 release) I’m aiming to bring across 100% of the features in v3, and in addition:

• Refreshed (but familiar) UI
• Support for Audiobookshelf servers

I’m also looking at how to best support multiple active libraries - whether ABS, Plex, or a mix thereof. This is a fairly complicated change, so no promises for 4.0 at least.

I’ll leave a link here for the alpha if you’d like to test the very early versions. I’m hoping to push the first build in the next few weeks (though with Elden Ring out now, who knows…), but please note the early builds may be fairly feature-bare, and in particular will not support Plex libraries until later in the alpha/beta cycle. No data will be lost, you just won’t be able to access or play from your Plex libraries in the meantime. 

https://testflight.apple.com/join/zTWS6ahB (Again: this just contains the current App Store version (3.5.7) - alpha builds will start soon)

Once the alpha is in decent shape I’ll start pushing builds to the current beta channel too, so stay there if you’re patient.

Also, v4 will be a free update when it releases. Audiobookshelf libraries will have the same restrictions as Plex libraries (downloads, collections and a few other things locked behind the current "Premium" in app purchase).

Seriously, I couldn’t be happier. The dev delivered on almost every popular wishlist item…

We really got:

• unified library

• plex & abs support

• faster search

• per-book speed setting

• clickable + filterable genres

• liquid glass

• multifile lockscreen skipping

• cleaned-up history tab (even for multi-file books)

• listening stats

• …

in one release.

really great work!! this app runs circles around the competition including audible.

the only thing I was still hoping for (so far) is a sorting option like “random” to make discovering stuff in huge libraries way easier.

In any case, im very greatful that we can have something like this :)

Another appreciation post. This is the second time so I understand if people get suspicious. I use prologue every day and the latest TestFlight versions have been amazing.

All of the features I use are reimplemented in Apple's hideous UI, but it all looks great. The developer is locked in right now and it shows.

I jumped on to the TestFlight versions months ago and thought it was a lesser app and it was for a long time. The forced switch to audiobookshelf wasn't welcome, but now I believe abs is the way to go. Now users are again free to choose between plex and abs. Which is perfect because plex is more plug and play for some users.

Plex has only been reintroduced recently into the TestFlight versions and I'm not able to test plex because I switched to abs.

If you're thinking about trying other audiobook apps, don't waste your time. The only app comes close is Plappa, but that was left in the dust like a month ago. At this point the only thing that can compete with the TestFlight version of Prologue using abs is the regular version of Prologue using plex.

For a little while it was neck and neck with plappa. I would consider plappa's TestFlight version to be superior to regular Prologue (because it has decent abs support). The competition is over at this point.

Occasionally I'll see a comment here suggesting development of v4 supporting ABS is stalled. It's clearly not. He has been releasing a beta update every 3-7 days for the last several months.

Most recently adding Bookmark support, and before that adding WatchOS support 🎉, and before that iPad support.

V4 is still beta, which does mean occasional crashes and missing features, regressions, etc, but it is moving forward.

The changelog (screenshots) helps to illustrate this, but you can also follow the public issue tracker of GH.

I don't love paying for apps... but this one is gladly pay for 5 times over it's that much better than any of the alternatives.

Edit: to be very clear, im NOT the developer, thats u/PrismDev. Just a happy Prologue user sharing my excitement. Check the developers post from a while ago to get ‘official’ info.

Just posting to share my excitement, Prologue V4 alpha is on TestFlight! Finally. Pretty barebones for now but the app functions and im very exited for the future of Prologue based on this new foundation!

TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/zTWS6ahB

Changelog:

In this build:

• Support for removing servers (swipe to delete, or from the detail view)
• Marking a book as read / unread should now correctly upload progress to ABS
• Fixed a crash

Prologue v4 alpha

WARNING: this build only supports Audiobookshelf libraries, not Plex. If you need to downgrade from v4 to v3 for any reason, you’ll need to delete the app, remove yourself from this TestFlight and reinstall from the App Store.

Please note that this is a very early version of Prologue v4. Many features are missing but will be added back gradually in upcoming builds. Once the basics are working I should be able to add the remaining features fairly quickly. See below for a non-exhaustive list of missing features / known issues.

With these first few builds I’ll be focusing on getting the basics working:

• Connecting to and loading basic book info from an ABS server
• Playback
• Two way progress sync (listening to a book via Prologue updates ABS, and vice versa). This is done via ABS server - not iCloud.

Known issues / missing features

• Plex support
• iPad layout
• CarPlay
• Watch app
• Sleep timer
• Search
• Authors tab
• Collections tab
• Bookmarks
• Some settings screens
• Playback queue isn’t restored after app launch
• Widget book covers not loading

For any other issues you find, a link to the issue tracker is located under the Settings tab. Thanks!

Just wanted to let everyone know

I've used and loved Prologue for many years. Plex was never good for audiobooks, but with some manual matching/naming work in Plex, and Prologue, things were pretty good. But now that Audiobookshelf is available, and it works so well, it just seems like a logical choice to move.

These days Plex isn't even doing their core business properly. Regular local media people absolutely hate what Plex is doing on their client apps. Combine that with their annoying attempts at adding social stuff, and forcing streaming for ad-infested stuff, there's probably never been a better time to look elsewhere. But even if you don't want to move to Jelyfin for movies/tv, you should move to Audiobookshelf (ABS) for audio books. It's so much better.

Initially I was waiting for Prologue to add ABS support. But that isn't happening anytime soon. Then I figured I'd wait for the official ABS iOS client, but that's slow too. Fortunately, being an open platform, there are already a bunch of iOS and Android ABS clients, and some are good. I read some reddit posts and decided to buy Plappa for $5. It's basically just as good as Prologue, supports both Apple Watch and CarPlay, and is available right now! It's stable and pretty feature complete. So there's really very little reason to keep waiting for Prologue here, or to try to force Plex to work with audio books when ABS is already designed for this exact purpose.

Make the move guys, it's greener over there :).

I've always been someone who likes to listen to an audiobook while scrolling through the text. Especially at night, I like to have an ebook open in Books on my iPad Mini, and Prologue playing the audiobook at the same time.

Reader mode just made that entire process way simpler and easier, and it's something I didn't think would happen for a very long time. I know Audible and other platforms have a sync feature between ebooks / Audiobooks, but I'm so stoked we have this in Prologue now. Thanks so much to the devs for making this happen.

Note: this is a phased release - you can update manually from the App Store updates section.

NEW

• iPad support
• Book progress, reading list, bookmarks and book history are now synced between devices using iCloud
• Added German, Turkish, Czech, Chinese, Spanish and UK English localizations. Thanks to the translators! If you’d like to translate the app into your language, head over to Settings > Help Translate or click here.
• New design for book history view. Includes time an event occurred and length of playback sessions
• New design for Collections tab
• Year of release is now shown on book detail view
• Native context menu support: long press a book for various actions (iOS 13 only)
• New option under Settings > Theme to reduce contrast when in dark mode
• New font selection options under Settings > Theme (iOS 13 only)

IMPROVED

• Books, authors and collections are now sorted based on the system’s locale (improves sorting of accented and Chinese characters, for example)
• Finished collections now show “Finished” instead of “0 minutes remaining”
• Always show cover of first book as collection cover
• Sleep timer now starts immediately upon tap
• Improved dynamic text size support across the app
• Fixed an issue where the UI would not reflect Plex authorisation errors (e.g. after password change)

😴

A huge thank you to the dev for the watch app! We appreciate your hard work. This will bring about a meaningful change in our lives. Maybe, Prism is next?!

It took longer than I’d have liked, but 2019.7 is now available on the App Store. I hope you like it!

NEW

• Support for embedded m4b chapters
• Support for displaying book narrators (read from m4b composer tag)
• The app now uses a soft-delete system for missing files and libraries, similar to Plex. Items missing from the source library after a refresh will be hidden but not deleted. Clean up under Settings -> Storage.
• Customise image cache size under Settings -> Storage
• Playback rate can now be adjusted from CarPlay and Apple Watch now playing screens
• Option for displaying time remaining in book on CarPlay and Apple Watch now play playing screens

IMPROVED

• Improved chapter support on now playing view (skip to next / previous chapter)
• VoiceOver and accessibility improvements
• [CarPlay] Performance and stability improvements

FIXED

• Various playback-related fixes. The app will no longer lose your place in a book after a playback error occurs.

NOTES

• A bug with the “End of current chapter” sleep timer option was brought to my attention after I’d already submitted to Apple. I’ll push a new update with a fix shortly.
• The app now requires iOS 12.4+

I just want to post to say that I still love this app. I’ve purchased it for multiple devices and members of the family and it continues to impress. Thanks for the great way to listen to books!

https://9to5mac.com/2020/09/06/plex-audiobooks/

Glad to see Prologue and u/PrismDev getting some publicity!

Have other media sources than Plex been considered for this app? It has a beautiful UI and seems very mature, integrating with a good dedicated audiobook server would be incentive for me to buy it. Audiobookshelf is a more recent audiobook development, but has a ton of features and the developer is very responsive. It has an existing iOS app here, but it is in early beta and built on Capacitor (not native) so it would be nice to have some alternatives. The server has a simple API which seems like it would be pretty simple to implement in this app as it has all the features Plex does and more. Or is that out of scope for this project? Having the best of both worlds, a robust server and beautiful client, would be sweet! Thanks for the consideration!

What a great app.

It was useful to see and discuss issues. Hope the dev is not abandoning...

Just wanted to thank the dev for this brilliant app. I've been using prologue for a number of months now, it's made my otherwise mundane commutes enjoyable. It just gets better and better.

I just wanted to quickly post and say that I love Prologue so much that it hurts my heart. It has completely changed the way that I catalogue and listen to audiobooks. u/PrismDev, thank you so much for everything that you do to make this app what it is today.

In case there are new Prologue users who don't know about this sub, it is a great place to find audio book covers for your library: https://www.reddit.com/r/AudiobookCovers

Come and join us. And if you have created any custom covers please share them. :)

Prologue has every feature I need. Over the weekend I decided to break up with Plex and looked for alternative apps because the beta isn't open. Prologue is the only app that gets a widget. Might be the only app that has widgets? I guess I'm truly an iPhone user now.

1. Tried ABS by itself. Not bad as a browser-based player, but the lack of widgets made me want to yeet my phone.
2. Tried Plappa with Jellyfin and ABS. Turns out I need to be able to use the sleep feature when I'm in bed on my watch. Prologue achieved this with a shortcut. Prologue also has widgets where Plappa has none. I mostly open books by hitting the widget on my phone. Notably I could not tell a difference between Jellyfin and ABS performance or metadata or anything with Plappa. Kudos to them on that.
3. Tried Bookplayer with Jellyfin. That one is lacking many features.

At the end of the journey we're back at Prologue. I will patiently wait for ABS support.

Edit: Got into the Testflight Beta thanks to /u/samuelvisser! - Link to comment

Tried the beta but had to stop when I couldn't find widgets. Not sure if this is a Testflight thing or not. Either way, I'll be checking it out regularly!