Alice for the iPad

[CleverClothe]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

Yeah I could see it being great in some adult books. Especially something like Dan Brown's books where you could have interactive displays of the artwork and other clues they're examining in the book etc.

I wouldn't want every book like that, but I'd enjoy some.

But then again, I'm relatively young and was raised on tv, movies, video games, computers etc. so I'm not a diehard bookworm like many on here!

I was thinking that it would be great for Dan Brown's books in a completely different way. In his next book, you could actually see the glue oozing out from behind the characters.

[mores]

Originally Posted by CleverClothe

I was thinking that it would be great for Dan Brown's books in a completely different way. In his next book, you could actually see the glue oozing out from behind the characters.

I think this requires knowledge of some english phrase ... please explain

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by mores

I think this requires knowledge of some english phrase ... please explain

= The characters are flat and boring
= The characters are cut and paste (they're identical between the books)

I haven't read the books, but I can guess what the glue reference is.

[asperger]

It's brilliant; and the fact that apple can make what is old new again, again and again, is extraordinary.

[scottjl]

Originally Posted by asperger

It's brilliant; and the fact that apple can make what is old new again, again and again, is extraordinary.

nothing hollywood hasn't been doing for years and years.. clash of the titans isn't a new movie after all (and amazing how many people think it is).

[captcrouton]

It's cute and fun, though the commercial was a little too caffeinated for me.

I realized the possibilities of active content in ebooks recently when I was trying to make an origami flower by reading a dead tree book. I just wasn't understanding this particular fold from the drawings. I admit I am a little slow and clumsy.

So I hopped on the internet and did a search for a video showing me the same origami flower. Ah ha. The drawings make sense now. I can do the other things in the book now too.

Imagine now the Kindle 5, or whatever, that has both the origami drawings (for those who get them) and the video (for those who don't).

Imagine "how-to" books that demonstrate fixing the leaking pipe. The biology text book with animated meiosis.. er mitosis. Foreign language books that actually pronounce the words for you. A biography of Beethoven with samples of his music innovations. Watch the orbits in your astronomy book, etc. I think educational books have the most to gain from active content. Not really the novels.

Apple isn't there. Remember, Jobs said that people don't read anymore. The i-pad is promoted as a big i-touch because that's what it is. I get it. I played the bouncing cow games on my friend's latest i-incarnation. Now we can have bigger, probably brighter cows.

But I know the innovators are out there who really believe in the power of books. Someone's got the vision. And these toys just keep getting better.

[dadioflex]

Edit.

[scottjl]

who says the author can't author all of the content and keep all of the cash for themselves? anyone who wants to write a plain-text book is still able to do so. the point is the ipad can handle all sorts of content and all sorts of people can develop for it.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by captcrouton

Apple isn't there. Remember, Jobs said that people don't read anymore. The i-pad is promoted as a big i-touch because that's what it is. I get it. I played the bouncing cow games on my friend's latest i-incarnation. Now we can have bigger, probably brighter cows.

But I know the innovators are out there who really believe in the power of books. Someone's got the vision. And these toys just keep getting better.

It doesn't matter if Apple isn't behind books.

They put out a piece of hardware that opens a lot of doors for interactive books etc.

Tablets are a necessity for such books. E-ink devices can't do them, even color screen readers like the Jetbook would lack the processing power to do them. Laptops and desktops can't mimic a book very well due to the form factor.

The iPad is a perfect platform for such new interactive books, magazines comics etc. Tablets are needed for this, and Apple, with their marketing appeal etc. has the best chance of any company of making media tablets a mainstream success and leading to innovations in the way we read.

Jobs may not give a crap about reading, but the device his company put out has the best chance to change the way people read of anything released to date. Both in itself, and paving the way for other tablets that come after.

[Xanthe]

Let's see how that pretty demonstration looks out in the daylight, instead of a darkened studio.

As much fun as that looks, I would never give it to a kid. I want their imaginations to develop on their own, from the printed word. Once you see an animated visual, that's the image that becomes superimposed in your mind whenever you think of the literary work. For example, the first screen version I ever saw of "Pride and Prejudice" was on TV as a kid, so for me forever Laurence Olivier is Mr. Darcy and Greer Garson is Elizabeth and Edna May Oliver is Darcy's aunt, no matter how many other versions I've seen. It's completely superseded my original mental image of the characters.

[dmaul1114]

To the first, who cares. Most people aren't reading out in the sunlight very often. If you do, then yeah an LCD tablet is not for you. But most people are reading in doors, or in shade etc. rather than sitting in the sun getting cancer!

To the second, that seems like an over reaction as it's not like it means a kid who gets this interactive e-book version of Alice will only read such books.

I grew up on TV, Video Games, music and a LOT of reading. It's important to be well rounded and take advantage of all media IMO. Not only reading, or only movies/tv or only internet/interactive books etc.

[scottjl]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

Let's see how that pretty demonstration looks out in the daylight, instead of a darkened studio.

Sorry, but when my kids were outside, they were playing, they weren't reading books.

As much fun as that looks, I would never give it to a kid. I want their imaginations to develop on their own, from the printed word. Once you see an animated visual, that's the image that becomes superimposed in your mind whenever you think of the literary work.

sorry, but this is the silliest argument i've heard. so a child has to read books with all text and no pictures so they can form their own images of everything? better take away those coloring books too. tv. movies. magazines. everything with an image on it, so you child can form their own images.

i think your don't give your children's imagination enough credit. they're going to come up with their own images no matter what you show them.

[scottjl]

Well I purchased Alice today and I'm quite impressed, the developer put some time and effort into the book, not just the extras. I have read the original story, and seen many movie and TV adaptations (my imagination was never harmed to my knowledge).

Looking at just the "book" alone, it's the complete story of "Alice in Wonderland" and does not include "Through the Looking Glass." It is beautifully illustrated using what I would describe as antique style watercolor drawings on parchment paper. It is not your typical eBook in the sense that you can not alter font size, spacing, or colors. Sorry. But the dark black font is large and easy enough to read against the parchment color behind most of it (some words may fall on some of the drawings, but those drawings are lightened to make the text easier to read). A few pages use a different color scheme, but they are the exception, such as white text on a black background, again, very easy to read. Black and white, or color drawings appear on most pages and illustrate what is happening in the text. There are a few pages that have no text and are just a scene from the book, with some sort of animation. Pages do not rotate when you turn the page, the book is meant to be read in portrait mode, home button on the bottom. At the bottom of the page is a forward arrow, a backward arrow and a Cheshire Cat's head which calls up the table of contents. You can not swipe these pages to turn them and there is no curl animation, the pages slide to the next or previous page. There is a slick spinning graphic if you select a page to jump through through the ToC.

I would describe this as a "digital age pop-up book" as the interactions are very limited, there are no games, video, web pages, etc. Many are simply objects that fall down the page when it is turned to, turning the iPad results in the objects falling to the new "floor". If there is more than one object they will stack up on top of each other. Care was taken so that they do not obscure the text.

There are very limited sound effects, the only one I found was a horn when opening the ToC. This is my only complaint, the beautiful book is strangely silent. A few more sound effects would have been a nice touch. Ruffling of cards, a squak from a flamingo, the dutchess sneezing, anything really.

Is it worth the $9? Well. Maybe more like $4.99 in my opinion. It has limited replay value, and the story itself is available for free. It is only some 52 pages, including the few that are nothing but a graphic. It's not as much of a kid story as the free Toy Story book, which younger children might play with over and over. Most people will read and work through this once, maybe twice, then use it to show off to friends. I can't see anyone reading this nightly to themselves.

It is a very good example of a book that is great to look at, has a good story, and some good interaction for the user without a game. If it were a printed book it still would be a good book to look at and read, the artwork really is very well done. I look forward to seeing what else the developers come up with. Some "easter eggs" might have been interesting too, to see what people can find hidden in the book.

On a scale of 1-5, I'll give this a 3.5. A good story to illustrate in this manner, beautifully done, but with limited replay value (as pretty much any book is going to be) and maybe a few bucks more than what I would have thought for it.

[dadioflex]

Edit.

[Logseman]

It seems more like the iPad might kill those toys dressed as interactive books then, which show images of a story and so.

so a child has to read books with all text and no pictures so they can form their own images of everything? better take away those coloring books too. tv. movies. magazines. everything with an image on it, so you child can form their own images.

The superseding of audiovisual material over plain text is a well-proven phenomenon, the same as a fictional portraying supersedes a real one. Why would monks draw luxuriously beginning letters of each chapter of the books they preserved, otherwise? They knew that their content would be more appealing if they did.

Myths like Dracula's or Robin Hood's are mainly built in the modern era due to their cinematographical appeal, while without the help of cinema they'd be a rather intense book about another Eastern European mad nobleman, and a traditional British bandit tale, respectively.

I'm not saying it is bad or good, I'm just saying it happens. If you expose people to a film, and then to the film in which this film was made, they will read the descriptions with an input in mind, the one of the film. In case they don't know the film, they must build it with their own imagination. Our minds are made to fill in the gaps, and they'll resort to any concept fitting and available in that task. If you have a film about the book you're reading in your mind, it just makes the process easier, as you just "grab it from your hard disk" (to put a computing metapher) instead of creating it from scratch.