I’m at a reading tech crossroads. Call me confused, more than ever.
For a good while now I’ve been hanging at my local library and finding a decent selection of audiobooks from which to choose. The offerings, while much slimmer than traditional books, have been decent so far but I’m beginning to see that this gravy-train of free books is about to derail. In spite of a rather large collection of audiobooks on CD, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find those books that interest me. With that in mind, I can see the time is nearly at hand for me to search out other options, to broaden my horizons beyond this particular delivery medium.
For the better part of the past year I’ve been researching books on gadgets, that is, moving beyond CDs and into the techier realm of the Amazon Kindle and the Apple iPhone. While the Kindle is devoted solely to the pursuit of reading — you know, the kind of reading where you actually use your eyeballs — it does not offer the convenience of allowing me to listen to books while engaged in other tasks, such as driving or sitting in my office pretending to work. Yes, I’m aware of the text-to-speech feature of the Kindle 2, but I’m not terribly interested in hearing a robotic voice drone on for 30 to 60 minutes at a time.
For now, I look at the Kindle as a contender for those times when I’m able to sit down and focus my eyes on the medium. And now with the advent of the Kindle DX, this format is becoming both increasingly more palatable, and strangely, less. I mean, it would be great to have the larger size for displaying magazine and newsprint kinds of material, but do I really want to lug around a screen that is, for all intents and purposes, the size of a sheet of paper? The thing is just begging to be snapped in half. That kind of fun for the low, low price of a few coppers short of 5 Bennies. Yikes.
The Apple iPhone is a slick device that kills many birds with a single stone. Not only does it do audiobooks, but it also offers the Amazon Kindle software as a download-able application in the event that I want to sit down and read a book. That proposition, however, has significant drawbacks, not the least of which is that the screen size is only a few inches on the diagonal, significantly smaller than either of the Kindles. I’ve also heard that reading (with the eyeballs) off a device that is backlit, such as the iPhone (or any computer for that matter) is quite tiring to the eyes after a while. Supposedly, the Amazon Kindle does not suffer this drawback with its eInk technology and lack of a backlit screen.
What I’m really interested in, when it comes to considering the iPhone, is its support for Audible.com, which is a fantastic site for purchasing and downloading nearly any book in audio form that you’d want. With an enormous selection, this definitely meets my requirements regarding how I like to read.
The books are not cheap, however, and they are loaded with DRM (Digital Rights Management) issues. So while cost is always a factor, DRM on the iPhone is not too much of a problem (for me) since I’m a big fan of Apple and its ecosystem of integrated products. Let me be clear: I do not like DRM, but in this particular case, I can live with it.
In the end, I think that any of these devices can be great for any reader in the right situation. Though they meet different reading styles, I have to say that I’m leaning toward the iPhone. It is the only device that does audiobooks and it does them extremely well. And until I can find the time to sit down and actually hold a book in my hands while simultaneously giving it my full attention, I’ve got to stay true to my modus operandi of “reading while doing.”
The Fine Print Addendum: All of the above to say that, knowing myself, by year’s end I will be the proud owner of both an iPhone and a Kindle (in one form or another). So much for a crossroads.
