Gadgets galore

For a household that is composed of people who don’t describe themselves as Apple fans, we sure do have a lot of Apple gear. Below, two iPads, three iPods, one iPhone.

All of these devices are still in use. The iPod Shuffle and iPod Touch are mine, and I use them at different times.

The Shuffle is great when I go away on short trips as its long battery life means I don’t need to worry about charging it while I am away.

The iPod Touch I’d have to say has been my absolute favourite gadget for a while now. I play games on it, read tweets and feeds, and check my email. I have all my music on it. It’s a 32gb model and almost full. Now that I have an iPad, I’m not sure whether the iPod Touch will be retiring. I suspect not, at least not for the time being, as there are still a couple of games on it that I enjoy playing. I haven’t bothered to try to get iPad versions of these games, mainly because I’m not sure how good they would be to play on the iPad.

As for the iPhone, because I got it after having used an iPod Touch for many months, it didn’t have the wow factor for me. That said, I’ve gotten very used to having a smartphone, and it’s wonderful that you can do so much with it. I check and write email on it more than I use it to make calls I think.

The iPad? Well, we became a dual-iPad household very quickly, despite scoffing at the idea of the device initially. (Note to self: don’t scoff. Or at least don’t do it so publicly.)

I think I know what aspect of the iPad’s Bright Shininess attracted me once M brought one home: the fact that the iPad could be the Uber Ebook Reader. It’s the Apps, darling! On the iPad, the ebook apps are actually attractive to me. I currently have four ebook apps on my iPad:

1. Kindle
2. Borders Kobo
3. Stanza
4. iBooks (this almost doesn’t count as there isn’t much content available. Currently it provides Australian readers with some 18,000+ public domain titles only, which I can get/read elsewhere.)

On the iPod Touch/iPhone, the reading experience felt too… small… constrained. I don’t particularly enjoy reading on the little screen. (I know others haven’t minded this. I suspect it’s just me.) On the iPad however this reluctance has disappeared. So far I have read two ebooks on the iPad – one using the Kindle app, the other using Stanza. The iPad means that I now have access to many more different ebook sellers (and formats). This is A Good Thing, even though the content is still very patchy. I have to keep reminding myself to be patient, and that ebook availability is going to change over the coming months. Do ebooks really only constitute 1.5% of book sales at present?

I haven’t been using my black Kobo since I got the iPad, but I don’t think I will necessarily stop using it. It’s just that I don’t have anything on the Kobo that I really want to read at the moment. (Yes, I have the 100 classics. I have to be in the mood.) On the iPad my reading was perfect escapism for my long weekend mood: Village Affairs by Miss Read (Kindle) and Clear and Convincing Proof by Kate Wilhelm (Stanza). (English village school marm nostalgia, and a case of murder most foul solved by super lawyer. Perfect!)

The Kobo is very comfortable to hold and to look at when you’re out and about. The iPad is heavy enough that it’s definitely more comfortable if you lean it against something. If the lighting is wrong and there is too much reflection on the iPad screen you aren’t really able to read properly. However the backlit screen does mean you can read in bed at night with minimal disturbance to your bed partner.

I wish I could predict where we’ll be in five years with ebooks – actually no, I think we’re in enough of a state of flux at the moment that it’s hard to say where we’ll be in a year! Price cuts? Will someone work out a great distribution model that works for everyone (publishers, authors, readers)? Will the one Uber Ereader be available?

I’ll just keep reading.