I’m not sure if I’ve ever professed my love for Kindle iPod before in this forum but I’m going to now. Let me begin by saying I love to read and I love paper books. Something about how they smell and feel that I just love. I never in a million years thought that a digital book would thrill me in the least…BUT IT DOES! I don’t own a Kindle but I downloaded the free Kindle reader for my iPod Touch when I first got it and I’ve love it. I can carry tons of books with me all the time, in my purse. I have read more books since I got this than I have in the past two years. The convenience is wonderful. Also, I can read in the dark, so I can read at night without disturbing anyone. It opens up a new world of authors that I would have never read by offering a large assortment of books for free (granted, some are crap but others are a nice surprise). I can make bookmarks so I can go back to certain points or find where I left off. I can also highlight text and make notes. It’s awesome!
So today I heard that they released the Kindle for Mac (Kindle for PC released in Fall 09) and I was so excited…until I tried it. It’s totally stripped down. I know it’s not meant to do everything a Kindle can do but I thought it would at least do what the Kindle iPod app does. It doesn’t.
The good things:
- It downloaded all my books, complete with the bookmarks, notes and highlights that I made on my iPod.
- Really easy to read. Even though the iPod allows me to change my font size it’s still a tiny screen. Reading on a full size screen was really nice.
- You can bookmark your place in the Kindle for Mac and they show up on your Kindle or iPod.
The bad things:
- You can’t add new notes or highlighting.
- No search feature so you still have to flip through the book to find what you want if you forgot to bookmark it.
Now I’ll be honest, the reading I do with the Kindle iPod is for fun so I don’t add many notes or highlight text. And to be fair, the PC/Mac app is meant to supplement your Kindle device. However, since it’s free and the Kindle is not (around $260), I always try to see if this is something that we can use in Higher Ed. Right now I have to say “no.” It’s not practical to think that students won’t want to highlight, search and make notes when reading textbooks. They would need the full Kindle device.
