First, no doubt being prompted and encouraged by my review of their last update, Audible has released another update to their iPhone app.

They added two more narration speeds (0.75x and 1.25x) and a shorter sleep timer option (8 minutes).

The 0.75x speed does slow the narration down, and the pitch correction stops your alto narrator from turning into a baritone (just like it stops said narrator from turning into a chipmunk when sped up).  Unfortunately it sounds all echoey with the two books I tried.

Why would you want to slow a book down, anyway?  Trying to stretch your Audible credits as much as possible?

The 1.25x narration speed works well, and sounds really natural.  I expect it will become the default speed for a lot of people, especially with non-fiction books.

But who asked for an 8 minute sleep timer?  Who falls asleep that fast?  Someone call a somnambulance.

They also fixed a bug with the sleep timer not working when running multiple apps — something I never noticed.  And they promise a volume control in a future update.  I guess people miss it.  I don’t, really.  I just use the normal volume up/down controls.

Second, I wanted to update my review on Jaybird JF3 Freedom Bluetooth earbuds.  I had forgotten to test the microphone sound quality for voice calls.

In my review of my first set of buds, I had said the microphone sucked.  Well I’m happy to report that it no longer does.

I have made several calls now and the voice quality is good on both ends.  It needs a quiet environment though — once I walked into an Arby’s while talking and my friend got a blast of background conversation, even though the place was relatively quiet.  Apparently they still need improvement on filtering out ambient noise.  It does work well outside though, even with a light wind.