Its now been about six months since I acquired the iPad and upgraded my aging iPhone 3G to an iPhone 4 and I’ve noticed some significant changes in my media consumption patterns.
Podcasts
The commute has become the place to listen to podcasts. There is a ton of really high quality content available. To the point that I have to use the iPhone’s 2x playback speed in order to get through everything I’m subscribed to and I regularly revisit the list and eliminate the dross. This has come at the cost of reading time, music listening and reading. In fact, music listening has been transformed into something done almost exclusively at home and in background mode with the exception of the CBC Radio 3 independent music podcasts.
Currently subscribed podcasts
Audio Books
The audio book thing still hasn’t seduced me, mostly due to the time commitment required and the competition for listening time with the podcasts makes this a non starter for me. On the other hand, I know a number of people that listen to very few podcasts and the audio book is their preferred medium to complement driving, cleaning etc.
Games
Historically, I have never been a big computer gamer outside of a small spell of LAN gaming with friends and colleagues about 10 years ago where we’d all get together in the testing lab and play Myth & Unreal Tournament until the wee hours of the morning.
But the iPhone’s retina display and the latest A4 processor in both the iPhone and the iPad have transformed these devices into really interesting gaming platforms. Plants vs Zombies, Fieldrunners, Angry Birds, Trainyard, Tower Madness, Flight Control, Strategery, Pinball HD (and others) all conspire to consume my attention.
Ebooks
I’ve been investing some time and effort in building up my eBook library using Calibre to keep things organized, especially back filling electronic copies of my paper collection that’s in storage. I’m also having to proofread some of the scanned eBooks as the quality is pretty variable. This too has slowed down my overall reading.
I’m still fighting with the lack of consistency in eBook availability, but have managed to accumulate a decent library. The latest good news on this front is that it appears that the Kobo store doesn’t seem to care too much about geographic restrictions at the moment.
I started using the Navel Labs ReadMore iPhone app in August to track my reading habits and I think I’ll make this an annual review now that I have easy access to the year’s reading list. Side note: I wish that iBooks had an option of some kind of absolute progress indicator instead of the dynamically changing page count based on the orientation and the font size. So in the last 5 months I’ve only read (outside of technical material) 10 books which I suspect is an all time low for me.
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Dave Duncan - The Destiny of the Sword
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Dave Duncan - The Coming of Wisdom
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Dave Duncan - The Reluctant Swordsman
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Diana Gabaldon - Outlanders
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Eric Lustbader - The Ninja
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Jared Diamond - Guns, Germs & Steel
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Lois McMaster Bujold - Cryoburn
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Megan Whalen Turner - The Thief
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Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer - When Worlds Collide
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Randall Garrett - Lord Darcy
Still on my todo list is to get back into reading all of Zola’s work in the original french - I’m currently stalled on l’Oeuvre which just isn’t pulling me in the way the earlier books did. It’s when I look at this list that I realize just how much less reading I’m doing.
I find that it’s interesting how the noise around iOS gaming tempted me into trying out and getting hooked on a number of games and how that has impacted my use of free time. If you’re easily distracted, this aspect of the modern smartphone is something you should be aware of and prepared for. Interestingly, my wife has not been touched by this aspect on her iPhone, but was hit full force by the iPad for this. Strategery, PvZ, Trainyard and Boggle are her primary time consumers.
Something to add to the 2011 New Years resolutions: play fewer games and read more. It’s going to be interesting to see how this evolves.