Tomorrow’s books

Well done, Al Gore!

Al Gore’s new interactive book – click the right arrow to view.

Following up on his movie about the environment, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, Nobel laureate Al Gore has published an interactive book named ‘Our Choice’ which can be downloaded from Apple’s App Store for $5. (Not via iBooks). It is simply superb and you would expect no less from a member of Apple’s Board of Directors. Whether you agree with the content is not the point here. This is a peek into the future of books and I recommend its purchase with great enthusiasm. The level of interactivity – photos, charts, videos, voiceovers – is beautifully done.

The application used to design and create the book was created by a couple of Apple engineers (no surprises there!) at a business aptly named Push Pop Press and the exciting part is that they hope to release a Mac desktop application which will allow anyone to emulate the technology in Gore’s book. Imagine the possibilities with photo books – clickable voice overs, pictures which enlarge and fold out when clicked, videos in ‘how to’ manuals, you name it. It should work well for both the art and technology sides of photography.

I can’t wait to get my copy, which will put the simple eBooks I have created to shame. Click ‘My Books’ at the right to see these.

Update:

Sadly Push Pop Press has been acquired by scummy Facebook and the book app will never see the light of day. Look here for more details.