iPad New series of Shakespeare apps

[WT Sharpe]

This is an iTunes Editor's Choice this week, and it looked interesting enough to invest $5.99. The good is that this remarkable app is the first in a planned series of 37 Shakespeare apps. The bad is that if all cost the same price, you'll end up paying $221.63 for an in-depth course in Shakespeare. On the plus side, think of the fun you'll have dropping Shakespearean quotes and insights around the office like they were second-nature! The first app is The Tempest.



iTunes store

From the Publisher's website:

• A cast of professional Shakespearean actors performing the play
• The full text of The Tempest as published in the First Folio
• A full digital version of Arden Shakespeare The Tempest including full notes and commentary
• A linked historical time line of Shakespeare's life, his plays, his theatres, and the historical context
• Video talks by both Sir Ian McKellen and Professor Sir Jonathan Bate on characters, themes, and the overall play
• Full breakdowns and explanations of every character with a visual rundown of all their lines across the scenes
• A full “play at a glance” with illustrations and summaries to explain the plot with key quotes and events.
• A history of all the major productions of The Tempest from the 17th century to the present day.
• The ability to make notes, copy and highlight text that can be collected, correlated and exported for later use.

“I can imagine generations who will owe a lifelong love of Shakespeare to this astonishing app.”
— Stephen Fry (more accolades on the publisher's website).

[pwalker8]

Interesting. Wish they had stuff like that when I was in school.

[FlorenceArt]

Ooh, tempting! The Tempest is my favorite of the very few Shakespeare plays I saw. And I've been wanting to try more, but I do agree that plays should be seen and heard, not read. I can still remember the day I saw a good production of Molière and realized that he could actually be fun, after studying his plays every single year at school.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Ooh, tempting! The Tempest is my favorite of the very few Shakespeare plays I saw. And I've been wanting to try more, but I do agree that plays should be seen and heard, not read. I can still remember the day I saw a good production of Molière and realized that he could actually be fun, after studying his plays every single year at school.

In this app you will both hear and read it. The text is synced to the actor's speech.

[pwalker8]

I went ahead and bought it. Pretty cool. Like I said, I wish that they had it when I was in school. Kids these days have it easy, not like when I was in school, running 5 miles to school each day, uphill both ways, dodging T-Rex with stone tablets in my backpack.

[HarryT]

Wow, what a simply stunning app! I have the complete set of Arden Shakespeare books; this is the perfect accompaniment.

[HarryT]

Having spent the morning using the app, I'm extremely impressed by it. It's not completely stable - tapping on a character name, for example, occasionally makes the app crash - but the core functionality of reading/hearing/watching the play is rock solid; it's just the auxiliary functions that seem a bit flaky.

The interface switches between portrait and landscape orientations, with different functionality, which is nice. In portrait mode, you see a video presentation of the actor speaking the lines in the top third of the screen, while the bottom two thirds show the printed text, which scrolls to stay in sync with the actors (or vice versa - you can scroll the text and double-tap on a line to sync the video with that line). Difficult words and phrases are underlined, and show a pop-up definition when you tap them (these are the notes at the bottom of the page in the printed Arden edition).

Turn the iPad to landscape orientation and the interface changes. The video disappears (but you can still play the sound if you wish), and the whole screen now shows the text. At the end of each line are icons which take you to notes, textual variations, and small pictures which take you to stills from various performances of that point in the play, explanations of related matters, and so on. Eg, in the storm at the start of the play there's a picture of a ship which, if you tap it, tells you the story of a ship called the "Sea Ventures" carrying colonists to Virginia which was wrecked on the coast of Bermuda in 1609, and whose story is widely considered to be Shakespeare's inspiration for "The Tempest".

Tapping an icon at the bottom of the screen takes you to a screen which shows you where each character is at that point in the play (very useful!), while tapping on a character name takes you to a summary of that character, from which screen you can see all the lines spoken by the character, and jump to the appropriate point in the play from any one.

The home screen also has an item which lets you read all the introduction, essays, etc, from the Arden book, and has a list of supplemental videos about all sorts of related themes.

All in all, a way of thoroughly exploring every aspect of the play. Perfect both for simply watching it, or gaining a detailed scholarly insight into every aspect of it. I look forward to the other plays being released!

One thing to note is that the app has about 2GB of videos which you download from within the app after installing it. That's about 1.6GB of video for the play itself, and another 400MB of supplemental stuff. You can delete and re-download any of the videos at any time (for the play itself they're split up by scene), but it's best to have them all. A good reason to own a 128GB iPad .

[pwalker8]

And people wonder why I always max out the memory when I buy an iPad.

There are a couple of cool educational apps to eat up a lot of space. I really wish that I had Elements back when I was taking Chemistry.

[AnemicOak]

Kinda makes me wish I had an iPad. The companies ap "London A City Through Time" also looks interesting.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Kinda makes me wish I had an iPad. The companies ap "London A City Through Time" also looks interesting.

It's never too late to buy one!

[ShellShock]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Having spent the morning using the app, I'm extremely impressed by it.

Thanks for the review Harry. Was this on your IPad Mini? I have a Mini too and was wondering whether the app is OK on the smaller screen.

I couldn't find any information on the publisher's web site about dates for future releases. I am particularly interested in Julius Caesar and the Scottish play. It will probably take several years to do them all, assuming they sell well enough for the publisher to continue making them. Which suggests they will concentrate on the more popular plays first, or perhaps the ones currently on the curriculum for the main examining boards. I hope this first one does sell well, so they can keep the standard up with good actors (who also cost more).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

Thanks for the review Harry. Was this on your IPad Mini? I have a Mini too and was wondering whether the app is OK on the smaller screen.

It works well on both my iPad Mini and my Air 2. Certainly no problems with the smaller screen size. I too am looking forward to further plays. I'm going to see the Scottish Play at the Globe in London in July, which should be fun!

When I emailed their support about an unrelated issue I asked about future releases, and they said there were four more planned this year, but didn't say which ones they were. I wonder if perhaps they started with "The Tempest" because it's one of the shortest of the plays? (The shortest of all of them except "A Comedy of Errors", in fact.)

[ArthurianLegends]

I love the Shakespeare Pro app which has all the plays, but this is something on an entirely different level.

Thanks for alerting me, as I am currently finishing my Masters in English and this is a must-have. Although I have 64 G ipad mini, I think its great that with the purchase I can synch from the cloud anytime.

[johnnyb]

Shame its not on the iPhone...