Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Book App for iPhone Geeks

I've always been kind of a Mac geek, but I'll admit that since my husband gave me an iPhone for mother's day, my geekiness has reached new heights. I use my phone for everything. On our recent trip to New Mexico, I mapped all our routes on the phone, looked up authors and titles at the book store, checked on menu options for a restaurant we planned to visit, found a bike store, a place to get my son a haircut and a Sears where I could return a pair of boots I had bought online in California. And that was just on Saturday!

And the apps? Oh, the apps! Here's a new one, releasing today: Teen Book Finder. Designed to "enable access to the best literature for teens," the app is searchable by author, title, year and genre. And since it's a project of YALSA (the Young Adult Library Services Association), you can also search their database by award/list. Even better, a Find It! button, powered by WorldCat, will direct users to the nearest library where they can pick up the book. Pretty cool, eh?

No, it's not perfect. With it's focus on "the best literature for teens," a lot of indie and small publishers will not be listed. And it only covers titles released in the last three years. But hey, it's a start. Hopefully, other developers will see the potential and come up with similar apps that cover a broader base. You can read more about the app and it's development at thedigitalshift.com. An Android version will be released later this year.

What cool stuff are you geeking out about?

9 comments:

Laura Pauling said...

That's pretty cool stuff. Someday....

Stina said...

Oh, that is cool. Will it work on the iPod Touch?

Hopefully they do expand it's title reach or else a lot of great self pubbed and small press books will be missed out on. But it might not be feasible with the sheer volume of those coming out (and it might end up including self pubbed books that should never have been pubbed).

Susan Kaye Quinn said...

Clearly they need a Best Indie Lit for Teens App ... I can totally see teens clicking anything with "indie" in the title. :)

Matthew MacNish said...

Sounds awesome. Downloaded.

Matthew MacNish said...

Dang. I guess it's not available yet.

Kristan said...

Very cool! I only have an iTouch, but if it's compatible, I'd love to check it out.

Susan R. Mills said...

That's awesome! I wonder if I can get it on my Blackberry.

Shannon O'Donnell said...

Ooo, can't wait for the Android version! :-)

bondwardd said...

I select an iPhone almost as soon as they came out, because I'm a dork like that. It was a while before I began looking at all the iPhone programs you can acquire though.

unlock iphone 4

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...