With the advent of Apple’s new iPad, a lot of new technology will soon be at our fingertips. One of the most exciting will be the advent of iBooks, which will be available from a soon to be released iBook store.
I personally would like to see a few things included that will make this one of the most revolutionary products of all time.
For iBooks to be a success they should have…
1. Clear and Easy To Read Fonts. This should be a no-brainer but Apple has used a different font technology in the past that has resulted in slightly blurry text. This can be hard on the eyes after a short period and I truly hope they research this thoroughly before releasing their first book. Give us a choice, but make them razor sharp.
2. Full Color. As much as I like the e-paper technology of the Kindle, I think Apple can blow this one out of the water with easy on the eyes color backgrounds and contrast levels. Give us parchment, paper, and other smooth textures that give us a sense of the real book. Give us full screen and highly tested contrast and brightness levels that will allow us to read for hours at a time.
3. Sound. Give us the option of ambient sound effects to set the ambiance of the chapter we are reading. If we are in a forest, give us birds chirping and leaves rustling. If we are in the city, give us traffic sounds and distant conversations. This feature, will be used to great effect by some people, but others will HATE it… so please Apple… give us a way to turn it OFF.
4. Video. Give us interactive video clips. This can be huge for how-to books. Imagine turning a page on your iBook and having a video clip open up with someone showing you step-by-step how to complete a project. Imagine a fiction book that takes place in New York. Give us a video clip of the area to set the stage for action that will take place in our minds. Video will truly set this device apart if it is done right.
5. Voice Activation. Say turn the page and have the iPad turn the page for you. This simple addition will make all sorts of hands free activities possible. Imagine putting the iPad on your kitchen counter in it’s holder and having Rachel Ray take you step by step through her latest recipe. Just say “Turn” when you are ready to go on, and the onions you are chopping won’t get all over the screen. This will also keep the touch screen much cleaner during normal reading.
6. Note Taking. Give us a simple command to have the iPad record our voice for note taking and annotation. It should also be easy to highlight and save passages for later review using bookmarks, and be certain to allow at least some cut-and-paste for blog excerpts and quotations.
These are six things I want to see in this new device. How about you?
What features would you like to see in Apple’s new iBook reader?