Reading on my Droid
I have been reading Sherlock Holmes in a book and on a borrowed iPad. I’ve never read a book on an electronic device before and I have to say that overall I liked the iPad experience of reading, though the resolution of the iPad did bother me a bit as the anti-aliasing on the type is clearly visible. Out of curiosity I downloaded the Aldiko eBook app for my Droid to see what reading looks like on a small screen.
I was shocked – it actually works really well. I tweaked the font size so that it’s about the same size as the type in the book (17pt on the Droid), and with the higher resolution of the Droid screen the type is crystal clear. The Aldiko app allows you to flick the page to turn it (like the iPad), and also lets you use the volume rocker (conveniently under my right thumb when reading) to turn pages forward and back.
I was skeptical of the small number of words that would fit on a page, but the flow felt very natural and easy.
Overall, I have to admit I enjoyed the experience. And I don’t have to carry any more devices than I already do. Wow, what a surprise!
Great post. I now have all my O’Reilly Pocket References on my Droid via Aldiko, which have always been a great resource but now are with me everywhere because I wouldn’t think of leaving home without a cell phone. (I don’t carry my code references with me everywhere..)
I have an iPad, Fujitsu tablet PC with Wacom Technologies and a few Android phones, and the big question for me in the future is which platform will most empower their users in general but, specifically to create. Are devices somehow dirty/not fun when they take a turn for productivity and are less about entertainment and pleasure? An iPad or Tablet PC will never be as ubiquitous as a phone, but could a phone ever be powerful/useful enough to have development environments directly on the device? I can and do write code on my phone to use later, but I can’t compile it directly on there. I wish I could.
I have so many devices to play with, but so few to “use”.