I have a new toy

I actually bought this Thursday afternoon, but I thought I'd play around with it some before blogging about the 16GB Iphone 4.  I'm not one who's been actively involved in any of the smartphone bits.  I rarely text, I even tended to forget to charge my old LG Dare for a week or two simply because I rarely used it.

However, I think my new Iphone will be receiving a workout for a while, for several reasons.  First, I think some of the Apps are going to be fun using and if I could figure out how to display the Sky View app on an LCD projector, I could see using it as a teaching tool for my students, most of whom do not know any of the constellations except maybe Orion.  Hopefully, there will be similar apps that I can find that might be of use (I already have used Solar Walk via the Mac App Store and when shown on the projector screen, it did grab the students' attention for a while; amazing how simple science images can capture even jaded teen interests, no?) in the future.

I've also tested out the e-book programs, just to see if it might be a viable supplement to my regular reading.  So far, the screen is very nice and easy to read.  I've tested Ibooks, Kindle, Nook, Kobo, a third-party Classics site, and will explore Google Books in the next few days.  Out of these, I'd have to say I liked Ibooks the best, for the simple reason it (like the others) allowed me to customize the font color/size and that it (unlike the others) has a simple pagination feature that makes it feel more like a book and less like a doc file.  Not likely going to be purchasing many e-books, so this part of the phone will be relegated to reading snatches of classics that I do not own and which are not targets for collection via the Easton Press or Franklin Library leatherbound collections.

The games are fun.  I enjoyed playing some Pong and Yar's Revenge via the Atari app and being a Civilization junkie, I was pleased with Civilization Revolution being available for $7.  Probably not going to download much more, since I prefer using my free time at home for reading/translations instead of playing games for more than 15 minutes or so at a time. 

The phone features are nice, although it took me a while to figure out how to get a customized ringtone (after googling for 15 minutes, I found a free ringtone that replicated part of Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused").  Battery life is acceptable and I love that my Ipod charger can serve as a phone charger as well.  Music and video plays well and everything syncs nicely with my MacBook.  For under $200 (I had a $50 loyalty discount), it was money worth spent.

Now to crash.  I am up late due to my stomach being ill from the meds, so tomorrow will be one of "those" days, I fear.