I have a deep and abiding love affair with my iPod Touch. I wanted the iPhone but couldn’t talk the wife into changing phone providers so this was as close to cool as I could get.
At any rate…
I’ve had lively discussions with my selection classes about why they are still buying print books. Of course, there are lots of reasons to do so, but one of the biggest drawbacks has always been the poor quality e-readers which are very expensive. Of course, Amazon’s Kindle has made a great advance in this territory in the quality of the physical e-reader, but the cost is still an issue. Now there is a free Kindle application in Apple’s App Store for the iPhone and the iPod Touch.
This means that you don’t have to buy the separate Kindle ($359) to go with all of your other fun technological toys. You can download your books (cheaper than the print cost) from Amazon and read them on the iPod Touch/iPod you have with you all the time anyway. Of course, if you have one of those other brands of MP3 players or phones, this discussion isn’t for you.
At any rate, I think this will continue to force schools to reevaluate their policies regarding cell phone use in the school. I’m not sure what the solution is, but the technology continues to march forward and the schools will need to come up with a plan for how to integrate the technology that is part of 99% of every student’s life. It could be that Janie is playing “Grand Theft Auto” but she might also be reading Crime and Punishment. This will continue to push schools and libraries to have the information available in a digital format that will be present at the student’s point of need — not when the library is open and makes it convenient.
I’ve not used the Kindle application for my iTouch, but when your Apple product can now hold hundreds or even thousands of books without buying the Kindle itself, it would seem that we are once again at a dynamic shift.
I assume someone is working on how libraries will be able to share this material. My undertstanding at this point is that the titles are not transferable from one device to another.
Will this have changed by next month?