This video of the Alice In Wonderland eBook for iPad is visual proof of how apple will kill the kindle and probably all paper based books over the coming years. Yes, it’s a big call from someone who reads 99% non-paper material, but I’m sure after you watch this video you’ll see the very start of the iPad eBook potential.
I can see encyclopedias with video examples and animated diagrams, kids books with interactivity just like Alice In Wonderland above, student text books with instant quiz’s, sifi novels with background music and flashes of interaction… or am I wrong?! and we’ll continue to publish paper based books forever?
It’s also the very first time I’ve ever seen a hype video for a book too! Want it, get it here. ($9)
Sweeping statements Aden,
I am not so sure it will replace books or completely wipe the floor with the Kindle. Books rely on the users imagination to inspire and entertain. A well written book still has that ‘unputdownability’ and fuels the imagination.
It will however carve it’s own market just like Apple products have done in the past. And, marketers will find ways of utilising the power of the iPad adding to the momentum. There will be plenty more of this kind of stuff to come, and I cant wait.
I love it. Bring it on, I want one!
Peter, Andy,
Thanks for your great comments.
I’m not a big novel reader, but hearing your comments certainly has me agreeing with you! You’re both right, a person’s imagination is the one thing you can’t shape, and a plain text novel lets that imagination run wild, where an animated eBook will somewhat provide someone else’s take on a books words.
But if that graphical take is the Authors vision, do you think then that’s what he was hoping to deliver in your mind anyway?
It’s not other devices this will kill off, it’s imagination. Yes reference books might be jazzed up with a bit of video but written fiction is powerful because it requires a reader’s imaginative input to make it a full experience. Once a content producer makes those creative decisions for you – what a character or landscape looks, sounds and feels like – your imagination becomes redundant. You watch a film but you read a book. The clue is in the verbs. Reading implies understanding of context and subtext, watching is just absorbing. There’s a reason why a novel is five times as long as a screenplay. ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’, you cry. Maybe so, but those pictures are not mine. They have been decided for me and that’s a big shame.
According to your thoughts, portable video players should have wiped out the books already…
Good comments. I think a lot of what you are talking about has been tried before just on the normal computer and a little shaking of the Ipad does really change anything.
Encyclopedias? Do they even sell them anymore?
Hey Jack,
As Andy noted it was a bit of a sweeping statement, and isn’t taking into consideration a whole lot of things. But when you see this kind of book, you have to think that the future of paper isn’t very strong. Plus I’m a digital native and books aren’t my thing, so I’m biased to the “experience” over the soothing paper base!
But both Peter & Andy put up great perspectives that I completely agree with.
As for your comments on portable video players, I believe it’s a different device, different topic, different story. eBooks still give you the same wording as the standard paper book, just with interactivity and added creativity, while videos/movies are a take on those words and don’t nearly resemble the book by word (generally!)…
Anyone who has never read a cyberpunk book, and specifically, “The Diamond Age” by Neal Stephenson have no clue where this is headed. In that book, the concept behind the “Young Ladies Primer” is what I see in it’s infancy here. Get past the hardware and Apple, and understand it for what it is…. a very powerful wi-fi/3g appliance that enables constructivist learning from global resources. It is a very short step for a publisher to hookup a MMPORG framework, for actors and educators, to this. I’m excited. My kid is only 1.5 years old, and he already can do math, knows the whole alphabet, and can even construct sentences from a pile of letters. I thank the iPhone for enabling that.
Fantastic. Imagine the possibilities and fun you could have with children’s book design. Can’t wait.
So, are Alice and/or the illustrations in public domain?
I’m thinking that the little tricks shown in the video are more appropriate for children’s books (and I don’t consider Alice to be that.)
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Only problem is, reading is a sustained, meditative act that requires a certain level of focus and concentration…which, despite its (rather pointless) bells and whistles, that Alice book completely compromises.
eBook Readers: two or three years from now, when the novelty wears off, they’ll have gone the way of the 8-Track cassette.
Though I like to read e-media for its reactivity and diversity of content, to me anything electronic is defined by in built obsolescence and easy decay.
I wouldn’t trust my collection of favorite book with annotations to a hard disk. My books I can throw, sit on, hit spouse with, its content is not going to change one bit. Not sure a hard disk could survive a thousand years in the sand like Tutankhamen’s papyri. Extreme example but would be an interesting test.
Though I like to read e-media for its reactivity and diversity of content, to me anything electronic is defined by in built obsolescence and easy decay.
I wouldn’t trust my collection of favorite book with annotations to a hard disk. My books I can throw, sit on, hit spouse with, its content is not going to change one bit. Not sure a hard disk could survive a thousand years in the sand like Tutankhamen’s papyri. Extreme example but would be an interesting test.
I (generally) agree with @Werkplace – this is the beginning (and, yes, DIAMOND AGE is where it evolves). This first step is a bit of a gimmick, using the shakey-bits feature to trigger animation (would you allow your 4 year old boy to play with this?). But, the physical interaction is what makes it more of a toy/gimmick than an actual deeply engaging interactive narrative experience.
There are (already) projects in the works that are more DIAMOND AGE, where the videos and images (and even story/text) becomes personalized to each Reader/User and where the story “remembers” and learns about the User. Build in location awareness and that’s another level of connecting.
@Werkplace 15 years ago my kids learned to read and do math from a desktop computer. It’s not the iPhone that makes it possible, it’s the software it runs, and right now, an iPhone and iPAD have very limited software capabilities (Apps are big web sites, not complex programs).
If kids e-books are this hyperactive I am never going to take a kid near one.. lest they develop ADHD. Too many distractions.. this isn’t a way to spark a kids imagination, it is just a way to make them respond.
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