#23mt

The final Thing! I can hardly believe it!  I have learned so much on this 23 Mobile Things journey!

But it’s not quite over yet. Let’s see..the app choices for this final Thing include Bitstrips, Forge of Neon, Muse Art, Paper, and SketchBookX. First let’s visit the ol’ App Store and see if any of them are available in versions that my ancient iPhone can handle...

I downloaded Bitstrips but then the only way I could sign in was through my Facebook. No, thanks. 

Forge of Neon and Muse Art require iOS 7 or higher. Ah, well.

I can’t find a free “Paper” app in the Apps Store, only one that wants $1.99 from me.  Hmm.

I only have a small iPhone handy right now and the SketchBookX requires a 4inch screen or larger.

Well, phooey! 

But I had fun watching the various introductory videos and skimming the introductory articles. If I had a newer device, I think I would enjoy the Paper app most, even if you do have to pay $1.99 now to get it, but I think I would enjoy it even more if I had a stylus to work with rather just my fingers...

But I’m not going to go shop for a stylus because I want to finish this Thing today and be done. Not with learning, mind you, but with this particular course. 

Thanks again, Katherine Huddle, for researching and compiling and creating the 23 Mobile Things adventure!

I enjoy learning new languages so I had already explored Pronunciator when CCPL first got it. So..for this Thing I decided to learn about DuoLingo and Google Translate. (When I watched the introductory video to WordLens it said it had moved to Google Translate.)

Reading the recommended Slate article, I am intrigued by DuoLingo’s so-founder’s idea that he will keep the site free by earning money from the bits of documents that students translate automatically as they learn. 

I also love that his motivation at least partly comes from wanting to help people in Latin American countries who can’t afford schools that offer English classes. Knowing English will improve their chances of getting a good job. However, people do have to be wealthy enough to own a device that has iOS 7 or higher on it. I will remember this app whenever I finally get around to upgrading my own device. DuoLingo sounds like fun.

GoogleTranslate also requires iOS 7 or higher but I watched the introductory video and was delighted. Imagine if I had been able to just hold up my phone to signs when I lived in Japan in the early 1990s?! No more wondering what kind of filling was in the neatly labeled rice balls at the grocery store, for example. 

But then I read the Guide article and became a little less delighted: you can only do that point-your-phone-at-signs thing when you’re online.  Ah, well. Still pretty cool.

I often use CCPL’s mobile “app” to check our catalog, to place holds for myself and to see if I have anything overdue or ready to pick up. I wish it had the full descriptions of items in the catalog so I could, for example, who the reader is for an audiobook, but I’m not really complaining because I love the convenience of what it does offer.

When I looked at “choose your own” list of other CCPL-related apps, I didn’t remember much about AccessMyLibrary so I tried to download that one.  It requires a newer iOS than my old phone can handle. Ah, well. I think I already know the libraries near me anyway.

Then I tried BookMyne, which I sort of remember testing a while ago because it is a SirsiDynix product but it was not still on my phone. I could download an old version today so I did. The recommended reading lists featured award winners from 2009, which made me laugh. I tried the barcode search function but either my phone’s camera is too old or I misunderstood what that function was supposed to do.  I looked up an audiobook and found a little more info than is available through CCPL’s mobile “app” but still not who performed it. There were reviews and a summary plus the number of copies owned by CCPL.  There was no “place hold” button so I guess you have to remember how to get back to the sign in page and do that first.

Anyway, the app as a whole didn’t seem to offer enough extra value for me to make it worth taking up that space on my phone so I deleted it after I had explored it. But I can see how it might be useful to people that want to keep their tbr list close to their library’s catalog and/or who are looking for reading suggestions and/or who are somewhere new and want to know what libraries are near them. Or whose library does not offer its own mobile website the way CCPL does. I think it’s good that CCPL is listed on this app.

IMDB.