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Sunday, August 17, 2008

IPod (or at least iPhone/ITouch) strike back...

Yesterday I had a posting asking if the Kindle is the new ipod. Not to be outdone -- or perhaps to be fair on my part -- an article in Publisher's Weekly not long ago noted that since Apple allowed 3rd party apps, over 130,000 users have downloaded Fictionwise's ereader app for the device. I read another piece in the past few days (although could not find it this morning) where the writer was saying that the iPhone/iTouch was the perfect column width for reading news.

I don't know. Here is my personal opinion. I own an iTouch, and I enjoy using it for many different things, but the screen is just too small for some applications to be comfortable. Short-term reading, fine. Longer term reading, not quite. However, perhaps the rumors are true that Apple is working on more of a reader-sized device employing many of the iPhone/iTouch technologies. If it has better battery life than the smaller devices, that could indeed be a competitor for the Kindle. We will continue to wait and see.