Popular audiobooks service Audible today announced CarPlay support for its iOS app, allowing iPhone users who have CarPlay to listen to their Audible audiobooks in their vehicles. Audiobooks for Audible is the second audiobook app available for CarPlay, following in the footsteps of Audiobooks.com, which added CarPlay support to its iOS app back in March. Apple will also be introducing its own Audiobooks app for CarPlay with the debut of iOS 8.4.

With the addition of CarPlay support, Audible becomes one of a handful of third-party apps to work with Apple's in-car infotainment system. Apple has maintained strict control over CarPlay apps due to safety concerns, allowing only certain audio-based apps to work with the feature. Other available CarPlay apps include iHeartRadio, Rdio, Spotify, Overcast, Stitcher, AtBat, CBS Radio, and Umano.

CarPlay availability remains limited as many automobile manufacturers have yet to introduce the system into their vehicles, though many have pledged to debut support in 2015/2016 models. CarPlay is mainly accessible through third-party infotainment systems from companies like Alpine and Pioneer.

Along with CarPlay support, today's Audible update also brings design changes and feature improvements to the iPhone and iPad apps.

- Lock Screen/Control Center – Previously, the Lock Screen/Control Center buttons were always chapter forward/back, even if your settings were for 30-second forward/back. Now, your lock screen/Control Center will feature the correct icons.

- Sleep Timer – There is now a “Reset Timer” option after the sleep timer ends, reducing the number of taps from 4 to 2.

- Sleep Timer – The fade-out returns.

- Discover – On iPhone, we’ve updated the visual design by removing the dark overlay and going to a grid.

- Discover – On iPad, we’ve replaced “Discover” with a true browse experience (it used to just be search). It should now mirror the iPhone version.

- When you sample a book from a book detail page in “Discover” or search, it now plays in the player. This allows you to leave the detail page and still listen to the sample.

- New Tab Bar – We moved Settings into the main navigation and created an overflow menu (on iPhone) for the items that no longer fit on the main tab.

Audiobooks from Audible can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]