The arrival of the iPad had many predicting the device would wipe out books, magazine and newspapers once and for all. But their doomsday predictions were a little premature, and as the folks at engageLab demonstrate with this fantastic conceptual app, tablets and books can live in perfect harmony.
The Bridging Book isn’t commercially available, but hopefully it will be because it perfectly demonstrates that there’s still a place for the printed word alongside our mobile devices — literally. The picture book is designed to sit right next to an iPad, extending and providing additional content and interactive elements for each page.
The app can even detect when the pages are turned without the need for batteries or other electronics embedded in the book. How? The corner of every page features a tiny magnet, and as they’re flipped they change the strength of the magnetic field on either side which can be detected and interpreted by the iPad’s built-in digital compass. Brilliant, right? But forget children’s picture books, every college text book should work like this. [engageLab]