Tech From an E-booker’s Viewpoint

I am not a cell phone fan.  The only reasons why I keep mine around are for emergencies and being able to surf the web on my Nokia N800.  So when the iPhone was introduced, I didn’t really get excited.  My husband has one and I have to admit it is an awesome phone.  The screen is beautiful and the iPhone has an intuitive user interface. I really like the scroll , enlarging pictures, and Internet pages effortlessly with your fingers. Then the drawbacks become apparent real fast.  First up is the battery life.  It gets worse for my husband as time goes by.  He gets less than three hours of constant web browsing, or about 2 hours of video viewing.  If he uses the phone only as a phone then the battery life is tolerable, lasting about 2 days, but then again he doesn’t talk much on the phone.  The next drawback is the iPhone Bluetooth capabilities.  It can only be used when making phone calls.  Once he switches to video or music, the Bluetooth is automatically turned off.  That makes no sense to me. Another thing I don’t like is that it is hard to get RSS feeds going.  I suppose this is due to Safari’s limitations.  His only feed was from Daily Lit and after the first day he could not get anymore feeds.  What I find really fascinating is that it has YouTube capabilities, but no reading software, no available games.  I must be getting old, because while I do view some stuff on Youtube, it would never be one of my must haves on a device.  Wouldn’t it be just as easy to include some sort of reader on the iPhone? 

So now the iPod touch has arrived, which is thinner than the iPhone, but no camera, no Bluetooth, no mention of a RSS feed reader, and still no application to read e-books.  I don’t get it this.  The 3.5″ display and touch interface would be perfect for reading.  I tried to find more specifics on the device, but I don’t believe there is an extras section containing a calendar, notes, to do list, contacts, or game applications.  I hope I am wrong, since my itty bitty first generation iPod Nano has these features.  I was really tempted, but I am going to have to pass on this one until I get more information or updates are announced.  I don’t know who decided that a text reader wasn’t necessary, but it’s like the iPod touch does everything, but the one thing it should have included.  Even Palm reader and Mobipocket have recognized that people want to carry books on their smart phones.  Just think, a 3.5″ bright color screen that automatically changes orientation when you turn it, finger scrolling, zooming (possibly good for pdf files), and backlighting.  I read that it has 22 hours of music play back, so using it for reading should give even better battery life.  While it would be nice to add memory, 16 gb would be more than enough for me. I really would skip the 8 gb since you can double your capacity for only $100 more.  That’s why the 4 gb iPhone is gone.  It’s make no economic sense.  So should you skip the iPod touch and go for the competitively priced iPhone?  That’s a tough call, and I think that’s what Apple and AT&T are betting on. I will be keeping my eye on this.  If Apple doesn’t make a reader available for the iPod touch, I know it’s only a matter of time before someone develops a work around.