Monday, January 7, 2013

"Why I chose a crappy Kindle over the iPad for my kid"

Why I chose a crappy Kindle over the iPad for my kid, article.
But the real lure of the Kindle Paperwhite – at least for me as a parent ­– is that it is so mono-dimensional. No apps, no games, no music. ... all she can do on this particular Kindle is read.

I did the same thing a year or two ago, gave a Kindle (coincidentally also to a 9-year-old girl), for the same reasons. We should encourage reading, and I hope that such single-use devices continue to be sold, even as tablets become cheaper.

Alternatively, as I've suggested, tablets may be fitted with software which the user, or a parent, can hobble for a specified time so it can only be used for reading in that time. I'm actually a bit surprised this hasn't appeared yet.

3 comments:

Len Edgerly said...

Makes sense to me, Eolake. I love the zen-like attention zone of my E Ink Kindles. Amazon's new Kindle FreeTime Unlimited program looks as if it puts customizable constraints on a Kindle Fire that look promising. http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000863021

Stephen A said...

Kiosk mode software may well achieve the desired effect.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Thanks, Len and Stephen.

The FreeTime option seems good for kids. For adult users, I'd like a thing which I could set to lock me into the ebook reading app for a time I decide. To get back out before time, perhaps there could be a delay or a task to perform.

Kiosk Mode app seems to be for a browser only.