It was Matthew Parris in the Times who alerted me to the fact that the iPhone in my pocket has an app which is measuring how far I walk every day. As soon as I discovered this I became, like him, obsessed with trying to maintain my average. At the moment this is 9,257 steps a day, in case you're interested. On the days when I don't have any reason to leave the house I go on long circuitous walks round the neighbourhood to try to keep up.
I've been using another gismo a lot recently. Instapaper is a site and app where you can store long reads from magazines and newspapers to read at your leisure. Since I never read anything longer than 300 words on a screen that's a fair bit of stuff. I've just added Kate Mossman's piece about Bruce Hornsby where it sits alongside an Esquire story about the early days of Silicon Valley, another about the ownership of the copyright of "Happy Birthday" and David Simon's interview with Richard Price.
I read these stories on my phone on the tube. Most of them will last as long as it takes to travel from Oxford Circus to my home. If it weren't for Instapaper I wouldn't read them at all.
Doesn't the Safari Reading List do the same thing already?
ReplyDeleteSimon
I've no idea. I don't use it.
ReplyDeleteReading List does serve a similar function to Instapaper, but is only available on Apple devices. Because it has a web site that allows you to access your queue of articles, Instapaper allows you to access them on pretty much any device with a web browser.
ReplyDelete[Also, for what it's worth, Instapaper has been around since about 2007, long before Apple added Reading List tp Safari.]
Fair point.
ReplyDeletep.s. second point not worth anything. those arguments are dreary and lead nowhere. ;-}
And if you're feeling particularly lazy, or you are driving, you can have those articles read to you by Voice Dream http://www.voicedream.com
ReplyDeleteIt automatically grabs any Instapaper articles, very simple.
Hehe. You're working late!
ReplyDeleteAll the best, mate.
Hey, pleased to hear another sing the praises of Instapaper. I love it. Have a save tab at work to read later at home, on the loo, last thing at night, cooking dinner... you get the idea.
ReplyDelete