Nick Wingfield, filling in for Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal, has an article looking at several children’s book apps for the iPad, including the multimedia Alice for the iPad, Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax, and others.
While Wingfield is not a fan of reading ordinary e-books on the iPad, he admits to being intrigued by the idea of interactive multimedia “book” apps.
I focused on kids’ books because they’re among the first to cleverly exploit the iPad’s capabilities and their rich illustrations can look great on the iPad’s color screen. It also helped that my 7-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son were fascinated with the iPad, looking for any opportunity to smudge up its touch screen.
I’m a little skeptical that we will ever see any sort of multimedia app that isn’t a kids’ book, however—it’s not what adults read books for. Though on the other hand, I suppose it’s possible that if kids grow up with multimedia apps such as Alice, they might be more interested in the same thing as adults. I just don’t think it’s likely.
Interactive books for adults do exist – they’re called visual novels:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_novel
I’m a little skeptical that we will ever see any sort of multimedia app that isn’t a kids’ book, however—it’s not what adults read books for.
Perhaps we’re quibbling about definitions, but I’d consider Theodore Gray’s The Elements and Phaidon Design Classics to be multimedia iPad apps that aren’t kids books. I’d call ’em coffee-table-books on steroids 😉
I think it is short-sighted to think that an interactive multimedia fiction “novel” (we’ll eventually need a new term here) will only appeal to children.
Not only will adults find fun and benefits in such a new communication/art form, but so will merchandisers!
Finally, the next generation of adults who are raised with this media type will find it part of their social structure.
As an example, note websites such as http://www.theipadkids.com