There are tens of thousands of apps out there putting themselves in the educational category, but few are actually delivering quality content that makes the most of the intimate digital experience that the ipads offers people.
Touch Press has had some great success in the science space with its apps like The Waste Land, Solar System and Periodic Table, and now continues to bring quality video to the ipads in the form of Shakepeare's Sonnets. It offers an experience of over 150 of Shakespeare's Sonnets read by the likes of Stephen Fry, David Tennant, Patrick Stewart and many performers from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company. It has taken literature on the ipads up a notch. Before the PR hounds started sending out their emails I had already downloaded and was enjoying this app because it took Shakespeare off the page and put it back into the aural experience that it should be. Of course, this is far from the stage where it belongs, but to hear the tones and intonation and see the expression and raised eyebrows on a performers face adds a whole new dimension to comparing someone to a summer's day.
Add to this perspectives on Shakespeare from leading scholars, access to the Arden Shakespeare's complete notes and discussion on the history, meaning and purpose of each sonnet and you have a comprehensive package that brings Shakespeare to life through a mobiles device. This is the type of resource that can inspire teachers to think differently about teaching and using technology and the type of app we need to see more of.
It is worth paying more than $10 for this type of product - and you should.
I had the pleasure of asking the producers of the app a few questions, and they further described the process and the depth to which the decisions around the app were made. So, read on to hear what Max Whitby at TouchPress and Henry Volans from Faber have to say about it.
Donahoo: How important is it to use the technology to bring Shakespeare back to the spoken word, rather than the written?
Volans: Very important. I'm sure it is no accident that Ben Crystal's reading of Sonnet 141 in Original Pronunciation is one of the most-shared, most popular performances in the app. The variety is the strength - the difference between actors' and scholars' readings, and the option to have video or just audio tracks. The key thing about the technology here is that it gives many options from simple to complex: personally, I enjoy the combination of the 1609 quarto on screen with a modern-day reading. There will always be users who prefer to be in silence with the text, and that's fine with us - there's a lot for them too.
Donahoo: Why begin with Sonnets and not a classic piece like Romeo and Juliet?
Volans: The modular structure of the sonnets seemed to us to fit the form of an app perfectly. We learned from our previous ipads title The Waste Land that poetry lends itself to digital presentation, for example by offering line-by-line synchronization, and the 'near-perfect square' of a sonnet on the page (as Don Paterson describes it) made our designer's job easier. There is also something appealing in the unexpectedness of the decision, of giving such detailed thought in design and software engineering to something as seemingly analogue as a series of poems. And some of this comes from Faber's long association with poetry as a form.
Donahoo: What was the reaction you received from the talent who read the sonnets?
Whitby: I showed the finished title for the first time to several of the actors and scholars who appear in Sonnets at our launch party for the title. These were intended to be swift five minute demos, but most had to have the ipads prised from their hands after much longer. For anyone who loves the Sonnets, the app offers a treasure trove of outstanding performances and rich supporting material that is a whole world to lose yourself in. Kids in a sweet shop.
Donahoo: What is the production process like for this type of app? Did you already have the sonnet readings, did you have to choose them? How do the more traditional literary types feel about the presentation in the digital space?
Whitby: Producing an app like Sonnets involves co-ordinating many different skills: literary editorial skills from Faber and from Arden, media production skills from Illuminations, software engineering and interaction design from Touch Press. Casting and filming the performances was a lengthy and complex task. Shooting took place throughout the six months it took us to build the app. We work a lot with prototypes and having The Waste Land engine meant that we could quickly get a feel for how the videos and text synchronization looked and felt on the ipads. We iterated the shooting style to avoid distracting backgrounds, find the most comfortable range of shot sizes and and to achieve maximum video compression.
Volans: In terms of the critical reception after release, we have found the traditional literary establishment to be - almost without exception - encouraging and supportive. Any resentment or suspicion is well-concealed if it's there at all. No app or digital product that I can think of has received as much coverage in the tradition books pages as Sonnets for ipads.
Donahoo: What more can we expect in the form of literary apps that go beyond traditional and limited frameworks that ebooks currently exist in?
Volans: That's exactly our aim and our mission, to go beyond the current ebook frameworks where there's a better book to be made. For Faber, our list goes beyond literature and into other area of the arts, such as music and drama. So one of my goals is to go beyond capturing words: where we publish a singer, to record them, for example. Ebooks have constraints: in design, layout, the ability to be updated live, for example. We see all of these as areas for improvement. We will also continue to focus on 'difficult' books because we believe we can open them up to readers to whom they were previously closed and unappealing. These often happen to be books that are poorly served by conventional ebook channels.
Donahoo: What does TouchPress really call itself - neither apps nor books appear to describe well what you produce - what are these things?
Whitby: Touch Press creates and publish books. Interactive books richly enhanced with media and offering the reader tools to enhance and explore the subject matter. Touch Press currently publishes books in the form of ipads apps. But that simply happens to be the best current format. Out titles are books at heart, respecting the qualities such as authorship, storytelling and good design that make the best printed books the great cultural object that they are. The interactive books we make are not intended to replace the printed word. We believe the best e-books have an enduring place alongside tree-books as a rewarding extension of the reading experience.
