there’s a butt-load of apps for that

What’s that peeking out of the special ipod pocket of my knitted purple furry monster felted ipod bag?

Why, it’s a 2nd gen ipod touch! That’s right, after dropping hints like anvils as my birthday approached, I received enough amazon gift certs and cold hard cash for me to succumb to my inner geeky desires.

Perhaps by knitting a pocket that was just waiting to receive it’s new tenant, perhaps just by thinking of ipods as I knitted each stitch, I cast an Ipod Manifestation Spell that the universe just couldn’t resist?

Whatever. The real thing is, this thing is so cool!

Guess what I did last night? I went out and identified constellations with StarWalk an ipod app that shows beautiful, clickable, renditions of the night sky, for my location and time, with a handy red screen feature for not blowing your night vision. No kidding!

What did I do this afternoon? I made a voip call to New York, on my ipod (yes, ipod, not iphone, that wasn’t a typo) using Fring and Skype.

What did I do just before a short car trip day before yesterday, when Sophie was pissed and didn’t want to get in the car? Downloaded Bejeweled 2 for her and watched her spend the next fifteen minutes entranced with figuring it all out. “Mom, I got a power gem!” “Cool, honey bunny!”

I’ve also made voice recordings while driving (stuff about the novel I’m working on) using iTalk, read the first three chapters of Pride and Predjudice using Stanza, and most of Coraline using Iceberg, drawn a picture and emailed it to a friend with Sketches, and played tic tac toe with Sophie.

And, of course, I’ve listened to music, audio books, surfed the web, approved a blog comment, and watched a you tube video….

And I’ve only had the darn thing for a week.

That last one, the tic tac toe game, was a bit of a lark: Sophie said, “Play tic tac toe with me?” and I said, “Hey, let’s try something,” and whipped out my shiny new ipod. Within two minutes we were playing paperless tic tac toe, with fun sounds and funny graphics. Sure, we could have used paper and a pencil, and I’m not saying paper and a pencil is obsolete or anything, but it was cool, and a fun test of what is becoming apparent to me about the whole ‘app store’ phenomena. If you have a need, there really is probably an app for that.

Only that’s not really true, because, what they really have is a whole butt-load of apps for that. I had to make a quick decision among a half dozen tic tac toe programs. And any of the above programs have gobs of competitors, some free, some a buck, maybe one or two for a couple of bucks. So far, any time I’ve thought of it and, for curiosity or real need, checked the app store, there was a solution. Need a quick I Ching reading? Find a map of the dismal swamp? Say something in Italian? Video on making an omelette? Entertain the kids for a minute in the grocery line? There’s an app…well, you get the idea.

It’s a whole different way of thinking about software. Instead of the emphasis being on the software, the brand, the advertising, the product, the emphasis is on my need in the moment. I can just focus on being in the flow of my life. And software isn’t something that I do at the computer. I barely think of it as software at all. I just get my need met. Cuz, it’s all about ME, baby.

And, perhaps, in part, because there is no physical item to produce (a box, a disk, a manual), the cost of these apps is so tiny, the risk in trying them out is tiny, too. So, try them out, I am. So far, I haven’t been disappointed.

I’m telling you, the Swiss Army, with their fancy knife, had NOTHING on an ipod touch.

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