Book: A Futurist's Manifesto

18

On the Therapist's Couch: Books as Apps, Really? (Neal Hoskins, WingedChariot)

Neal Hoskins is the founder of wingedchariot. Outdoors and onscreen it’s all about the obvious. You can follow him on twitter at @utzy. WingedChariot makes beautiful multi-lingual applications for many screens. Their work sits at the intersection of quality print and digital production. Follow @storiestotouch for news.

I begin with a personal story. By the time these crisp chapters come out, three years will have passed since WingedChariot made its first app. In terms of app development, this is long ago, but in practice it is really only 36 months.

That first app was an 18-slide picture book that was designed to be read on a 3.5 inch screen. Readers swiped to move the page and saw a total of six animations of a sheep on a motorbike. At the time, many people laughed at this effort. “What is it?” they asked. “Really? A children’s book on such a small screen?”

Then, in 2010, larger-form tablets arrived, and boy, we were off, as in “Vroooooooooooooooooooooooom.”

But track back a little to 2008 when the first app stores were opening. At the time, we were inspired by innovators like Scrollmotion and Enhanced Editions. These and other firms were pioneers, ones that saw apps as a way to provide books with pictures, sounds, and interactivity in a much more friendly and hands-on way than publishers ever achieved on formats like the CD-ROM or floppy disk.

Hardware met software met digital storefront ...