Alice In Wonderland iPad App Reinvents Reading (VIDEO)

Newspapers, magazines, and book publishers are rushing to develop iPad apps tailored to Apple's new tablet.

Some of these content creators have taken advantage of Apple's new platform better than others, incorporating colorful, interactive, video, and web elements into their e-versions.

Alice for the iPad offers an exciting look at how content could be shifting and evolving with Apple's new platform.

The developers have created the pop-up book of the 21st-century. With this creative update to Alice in Wonderland, users don't just flip the "pages" of the eBook--they're meant to shake it, turn it, twist it, jiggle it, and watch the characters and settings in the book react.

Alice for the iPad's description on iTunes details some of the features:

Tilt your iPad to mke Alice grow big as a house, or shrink to just six inches tall. [...] Throw tarts at the Queen of Hearts - they realistically bounce off her. Witness the Cheshire Cat disappear, and help the Caterpillar smoke his hookah pipe.

Check it out below--then tell us what you think! See more terrific iPad apps here.

WATCH:

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Comments

[Kitzy]

10:15 AM on 04/21/2010

How can anyone vote 'not impressed' on that poll. Come ON.

And to the Luddites saying that it's only a passing fad, uh, that was said about television, the Internet, and The Beatles,

I'm in the publishing industry and I am not afraid of new technology (other than having my copyrights trampled). Bring it on.

[wietogwietog]

04:41 PM on 04/16/2010

Parlour games. Spinning tin toys.

About 50 years from now. all this handheld crap will seem like so much amusing nonsense.

The "device" is already on its way out....

[dmsdzinr]

12:54 PM on 04/16/2010

Just a PRECURSOR to what is TO COME in the future for the iPad and the iPhone. Content is moving AWAY from Print and into DIGITAL & Interactive. Look for DIGITAL Magazines, Newspapers, Music Albums etc, etc, etc. The Possibilities are LIMITLESS!

[rjhuntington]

05:53 AM on 04/16/2010

This is genuinely new. A game changer.

[zeiben]

07:32 AM on 04/16/2010

Perhaps you forgot the era of CD ROMs. This seems not that much different, though maybe having that experience in a portable format will be, as you say, a game changer.

[rjhuntington]

09:24 AM on 04/16/2010

No, CD ROMs were nothing more than larger-capacity disk drives. And portability is not new, even as it shrinks the form factor. The tablet concept is not new either, although Apple's implementation is certainly fresh.

What is genuinely new and makes the iPad a game changer is the inclusion of accelerometers and attitude detectors. The unit knows its orientation and knows if you turned it one way or the other or shook it or bumped it in some way. This enables a degree of interaction with the content unknown until now.

Did you watch the video? Did you see the ebook's illustrations change based on how the user handled the tablet? If you had, I don't think you would have posted what you did.

[mlaiuppa]

12:30 AM on 04/16/2010

The example looks frantic, but you can see what the book is going to be like. Totally interactive. It's a shame it will probably be a condensed version of Alice. Pop up book is a good comparison.

I loved popups when I was growing up.

I can see this being fantastic for a lot of children's books. The can read them. But then can also interact with them. It's not just a link of video. It's a game and it's a book.

Now *this* makes me want to buy an iPad. Because this Alice is just the tip of the iceberg of ebooks to come.

[lockDown]

09:26 PM on 04/15/2010

Let's see a 'netbook' or raggedy laptop do that! Ha! The iPad is used on ACCESS HOLLYWOOD also. Hate the game, not the player.

[Cryostatic]

08:23 AM on 04/16/2010

I will admit, no laptop/netbook can do this (missing required accelerometer).

Also, what is this "ACCESS HOLLYWOOD" of which you speak, and in what capacity is the iPad used there?

[Tom Joad]

09:18 PM on 04/15/2010

reinventing reading? looking at the pictures isn't reading...

[mlaiuppa]

12:32 AM on 04/16/2010

There's text. They just didn't slow down enough to let you see that it's a book. An interactive book.

[yogandclimber]

12:50 PM on 04/16/2010

I will definitely get the book also

[pmilo]

03:38 PM on 04/15/2010

I actually like this idea. This could be a good way to get kids to read the classics. How about one of these apps for Shakespeare?

Or for adults, this could be a great way for interactive tech manuals. I'm a visual kinetic learner, so I would be interested.

[AndyWright68]

03:02 PM on 04/15/2010

No vote for annoying?

[jshade]

02:58 PM on 04/15/2010

Reinvents reading? Oh good lord. Reinvents histrionics, yes. Reinvents propaganda in ways nobody ever imagined. Reinvents vanity, certainly. Reinvents arrogance, to a whole new bar. Playing with graphics is fun, sure, but it ain't reading. Reinvent another story this one is reinventing irrelevant.

[knerd]

02:41 PM on 04/15/2010

Good on them for preserving the original text and format of Carroll's book! Johnny Depp and Hollywood are cool, of course, but there's nothing like getting connected to the 1865 John Tenniel's Victorian-era illustrations.

[LibChicAZ]

04:49 PM on 04/15/2010

That's exactly why I had to have it, for the Tenniel illustrations. It's gorgeous.

[tomanjeri]

02:31 PM on 04/15/2010

The App is stunning, the video about the App is overdone.

[eShirl]

02:22 PM on 04/15/2010

I'd be enchanted if I were a kid. As an adult, meh.

[d young]

02:45 PM on 04/15/2010

As a kid, I'd just be playing with the graphics---not reading. As an adult, I'd want the book without the graphics.

[tuff guy]

02:17 PM on 04/15/2010

show me a netbook that can do that.

[sipsake]

08:12 PM on 04/15/2010

Show me an iPad that can print.

[lockDown]

09:27 PM on 04/15/2010

Apps print. You don't need hardware to do everything. It's 2010.

[Deckard1138]

02:14 PM on 04/15/2010

Talk about shaking up an industry (or more).