I read on all of my devices (iPhone, iPad, Droid) using iBooks and Kindle apps, but mostly the Kindle app. I particularly like reading on an iPhone or Droid while standing on MUNI or BART (public transportation in San Francisco) because I can easily hold on to an overhead bar, hold iPhone or Droid, read AND turn pages all with the same hand. That’s pretty difficult to do with a paper book or newspaper.
The iPad improved my experience of reading in bed.
If I’m on my side, in bed, I can only read the odd (or even-numbered pages) with the book propped on its side:
Reading in bed, old school
That’s something that always frustrated me as a kid, reading under the covers with a flashlight and having to prop up the book more to read the other side of the page, or holding the book open with one tired hand:
Holding book open. Tiring.
I love reading in bed with the iPad because it props up the “whole book” at the same angle.
iPad improves the experience
I also like reading to my 6-year-old kid in the dark, using an iPad, as she goes to sleep. I turn the brightness all the way down, and it’s still too bright in the dark, so I also turn the brightness all the way down in the iBooks or Kindle app. I sit in a chair by her bed and read a chapter of a book to her (currently I’m reading the Ramona books to her). It’s so much quieter and easier than a paper book with pages to turn and a booklight to adjust.
Reading on iPad vs. reading on paper
A friend recently mentioned how useful the dictionary is in the Kindle and iBooks app. I’d never used the dictionary until my kid asked what a word meant, I couldn’t think of an immediate easy definition, and I remembered I could highlight a word to get a definition, and it worked!
My kid is a good reader, but she doesn’t yet read chapter books on the iPad. She checks out the paper version from the library and she enjoys using and making different bookmarks for the paper books. I wonder when she’ll start reading more digitally. Probably just a few years.
I have some books in more than one format (paper and Kindle, or paper and iBooks). That’s a bit of a racket — paying twice for the same book content just to have it both on paper and digitally. I hope someday I can pay for the content in one format and choose to have it delivered in multiple formats – particularly if I want to share a book with someone who doesn’t have a device running the proprietary app (iBooks, Kindle).
I’m old-school in that I really dislike reading books on any electronic device. I do check out nytimes.com and SF Gate on a pretty regular basis, but that’s because I’m cheap and don’t want to pay for a subscription.
For me, nothing beats reading an actual (analog?) book. It’s way more peaceful and relaxing to me than reading on my laptop or Joel’s iPad. And forget the iPhone; the screen is much too small for me to read much of anything beyond the occasional Yelp/movie review.
I do wonder if real books going the way of the dodo is an inevitability. Quite possibly, I guess, so I suppose I’ll need to learn how to enjoy reading electronically at some point or other. I’m in no hurry, though….