PAPERCUT – Enhanced reading experience for iPad from Mathew Munro on Vimeo.
This is a rather intriguing idea. A book reading app that seeks to use the properties of the iPad to create a new type of immersive reading experience for ebooks featuring audio, video and rather lovely animations.
Adam recently observed that "there are two, diametrically opposed dangers on tablets: being a print fundamentalist and being a web fundamentalist". So true. So many iPad apps from publishers seem to be wanting to squeeze analogue principles inappropriately into an entirely new interface that is deserving of something new and unique.
I think that what I like about this, is that it's taking the old, but bringing something which is rich and new to it in a way that completely fits with the medium. As you read the text it triggers image sequences, animations, and audio that enhance or relate to the narrative so that it becomes more multi-sensory.
I'll admit to there being a cynical part of me that questions whether having such additional input whilst reading is merely distracting from what I should really like to be paying attention to – my imagination. But there's perhaps a bigger part that is rather fascinated by the idea of it, and even more intrigued about about where this might lead us too.
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