I got the opportunity this week to play with an iPad from work. Right now I’m even typing up this entry on it. I do have to say that this has been a great learning experience. Within just a few hours of playing around with it I knew that I wasn’t going to be buying an iPad, at least not first a gen one.
While the iPad has a lot of things I thought I would really like, I’m finding that the keyboard is just too hard for me to get used to, so I would probably really only use the iPad for reading ebooks and with Kindle coming to libraries in the near future, my options are really starting to open up as far as ereaders go. Also, my netbook can do a lot of the other things I would use an iPad for like writing or surfing on the Internet.
I also found that a lot of the games you can get are a real distraction to the point that one of the main things I wanted to do this week was to read a book on the iPad. And I have yet to read more than a few lines and that is what I did while I was on break at work. And while I enjoy games as much as anyone, I dont have them installed on my netbook for a reason. It means that I won’t get any of the work I’m planning on doing done.
So while I’m having a lot of fun playing with this iPad, I’m glad that I’ve gotten this week to play with it. And I’m really looking forward to playing with the Nook and Kindle we also have. Maybe someday patrons will even be able to check them out at the library as well, but until then I’ll have fun exploring these devices so that I can help patrons when they are having trouble downloading and using our ebooks on their own devices.
Have you gotten a chance to explore any of the ereaders out there?
Emmie Fisher 