I Found At Least One New Thing I Like About My iPhone

Well, I found at least one new thing I like about my iPhone. I downloaded the Goodreads app for it and happened to notice that it had a “scan” element. I checked it out and figured out that it let me add books to my Goodreads shelves by just scanning the barcods with my iPhone’s camera.

You have no idea how much easier this makes my life, not having to type long numbers in on a phone keyboard (or worse, a virtual keyboard). Mistakes often could be made in a long string of numbers, requiring reentry. Sure, I could have just searched by title or author, but sometimes that would yield a different edition with vastly different page numbers or such. No, I preferred to have the right one and previously ISBN search was the best way to do it. But, this is better.

I love this feature. I picked up six books this weekend and had them added to Goodreads in seconds. The only one that gave me trouble was a really old book (apparently some older books don’t have their bar codes tied to their ISBN numbers or some such thing). Even with possibly still having to add one or two books manually because they are too old to scan their bar code, I love this feature.

Now, I don’t know if the Goodreads android app has this feature, but the app I had on my old HTC sure didn’t have it. Maybe I just hadn’t updated the app in a long time, but it never prompted me to so I always assumed there wasn’t a new version out there with more advanced features.

Whatever the situation is, even if getting the iPhone just caused me to get the newest version of the Goodreads app that always had this feature and I never knew about it, the iPhone is at the very least the reason I got the updated app. For that, or whatever other reason I have this feature now and didn’t before, I’m pleased with my switch to the iPhone.

(Unrelated note: if it isn’t July 2013 yet and you haven’t voted for story of the month over at Bartleby Snopes, consider popping over and voting for my story “The Des Moines Kabuki Dinner Theatre.” You don’t have to sign up for anything, give any personal information, or install any apps to vote. Spread the word.)