Kindle app on the iPod Touch

Unlike me, my husband doesn't sit and read for hours at a time. He does read magazines and a lot of reference books, but usually for learning rather than for fun. So until now, he has resisted downloading the Kindle app for his iPod Touch/ iPhone, saying he just wouldn't use it.

It so happened that a few days ago he needed to do some reading but was awfully tired, so I let him borrow my Kindle to try the text-to-speech (TTS) option. We are reading a chapter a week of The Story in a Bible group, and he was behind on his reading, so he plugged in his headphones, lay back in his recliner and listened as the Kindle read it to him.


That night, he downloaded the Kindle app, registered it to my account and was quickly able to download a few of the hundreds of books I have purchased over the past couple of years. He was somewhat disappointed to learn that the Kindle app doesn't offer TTS. I agree, that's a shame as it's a great bonus to have them read aloud when your unable to sit and read - like when you're driving, cooking dinner or weeding in the garden and the book is just too good to put down! 

That said, I think he will still use it a little on his iPod Touch. He liked the flippy page turns (though with a lot of reading I think that would get old quick), and I admit that scrolling books was very nice. I'd forgotten what it's like to choose a book by it's cover (haha) as now I mostly pick them by description and reviews.

The text has a sepia option, which is quite nice as reading on a backlit screen gets painful on the eyes after long periods. But then, I think these apps aren't so much to use instead of a Kindle but as a supplement - quick access to your books when you don't have Kindle available. I think, for now, Hubs will stick to paper books for most things but use the Kindle app as a quick reference to certain books.
Over the past 2 years, I've grabbed a lot of free books that have been on promotion at some time or other - whether they were of interest to me or not. I knew there might be a time when someone else in the family might share an account with me, so I am excited to see how much more use my eLibrary might get!