I got an iTouch for Christmas, and I find it interesting how it has changed the way I interact with information on the internet.
What I like. More immediate access to Twitter. Being a parent, partner and teacher keeps me busy enough that I am not in front of my laptop enough to keep on top of all the amazing conversations going on in my Twitter network. Having the iTouch in my pocket, however, has allowed me to peek in on these conversations more regularly and bookmark the parts I want to comeback to.
In particular I have really enjoyed peeking in on the current conversation regarding literacy. I first became aware of it when Will Richardson tweeted an invite to this elluminate session, then I came across Ryan Bretag`s blog post summary of his thoughts on `The Great Literacy Debate`. Finally, this morning I found (via AngelaMaiers on Twitter) this great blog post by Beth Holmes giving some great historical background to the conversation. I wouldn`t have been aware of any of this without the iTouch.
What I don`t like. The biggest drawback so far is that I have become much more of a consumer of information and less of a producer. I find the virtual keyboard on the iTouch difficult to navigate and so find myself reluctant to type much more than a search term or username. At the same time my laptop is open less as I can now follow conversations and go to websites using the iTouch.
I am also a little put off by the fact that Apple insists on me providing them with a credit card number to get a Apple ID, which I seem to need to download any applications onto my iTouch. From what I can tell there are a lot of FREE applications that would help me to sync my iTouch with all the cloud computing services I use, but I can`t get them without giving Apple a credit card number. I will probably break down and sign up for an Apple ID soon, but for the moment I`m going to be quietly indignant and continue to just use the applications it came with.