I agree that merely mimicking a physical book on a screen is not an advanced concept, but my only gripe is the idea that somehow there is a need for pages that virtually curl, flip, roll back and forth, make page sliding noises, and are separated by a virtual seam in the middle to resemble a book. Yeah, yeah, quaint, cute, look at Winnie-the-Pooh go to the other side. Not all that revolutionary, and certainly not necessary. But that isn’t the power of the book, or written tome of any kind, anyway. That’s form. Not substance.

But to simply break away from a book for the sake of breaking away from a book seems ridiculous to me, unless something requires it. There is nothing wrong with a book (or a “scroll” in the case of HTML), and there is power in the written word that will NEVER go away, and will NEVER be replaced.

Every communication medium has its advantages. It’s a simple game of show and tell. With movies you SHOW. With books you show by TELLING. Both audio and video can convey ambience or information. There is no one right way, and none of it will EVER become obsolete. They are just tools on a palette.

The idea that text, audio and visual media can be blended seamlessly and intuitively into a single medium is the power of what is being explored here, REGARDLESS whether it appears as a movie screen, a book with a spline, cover, pages and seam, or some nebulous experimental neo-web-3.0 blobs with chunks of text and video splattered everywhere, and all in an attempt to say, “I’m not like those other stupid forms, I’m different”. Again, centering on form, when utility and substance – the skeletal framework – come first, regardless how it’s shaped and skinned afterward.

The actual form is incidental, and somewhat irrelevant, as all forms can work, and should be available as author choices. We are accustomed to reading textbooks and other learning media, and seeing illustrations (e.g., Fig. 1) in printed form. We read the text, and look at the illustrations for examples. How nifty. How obvious and simple.

Now what’s wrong with just making Fig. 1 a video, flash application, or interactive table? That isn’t small. You call it “just some multimedia tacked onto the end”, but how about just strewn throughout as needed?

It’s not being done by ANY of the major “ebook” readers. Yet. But just that alone does something that NO paper media (aside from cartoon flip books) can do. You’ve animated it. You’ve put a 4D element to it. You’ve enabled an author to bounce back and forth at will, choosing and using whatever element conveys the most, and most appropriate, information for learning or getting a point across.

Simple? Sure, to describe it is very simple. And seemingly obvious. But to implement that is another story altogether, unless you’re talking web, HTML, etc.,.

When I’m learning, I want a “TOME” to read. Not a web page with links willy-nilly to everywhere. Something with a “cover-to-cover” aspect to it. A complete, single work. I like .PDF files. I like textbooks, and scrolls and such. Stuff with a beginning, middle and end, complete with references, bibliographies, illustrations, etc., but also with more advance visual and audio media, and interactive tables, and flash-like programs which can demonstrate a concept visually and interactively. Not web pages. SINGLE UNITS, ready for publishing, and downloadable and readable as such. And NOT HTML that is compiled into an .exe or other platform specific file that has to be downloaded, unzipped, and then executed. That’s STUPID, is not the future, and isn’t going anywhere.

Companies like Vook and Inkling have the right idea, because they ARE porting to the iPad and other platforms, but these pointy-heads, in their infinite wisdom, are doing the nauseatingly obvious, as they try to target already established publishers only. They don’t see self-publishing in the same way as say, ADOBE?

Speaking of which, why hasn’t Adobe already cornered the interactive multimedia e-book market with an enhanced multimedia .PDF standard of some kind? No need to answer. They haven’t even mastered the art of something as simple as WORD WRAP.

The ONLY iPad app I have seen that comes anywhere close to what I envision as the next step is called Panoploid (Panoply for iPhone), and their ONLY problem is that they are platform specific (ONLY iPad/iPhone, which is just as stupid as an .exe limitation), and their concept of “saving” for distribution is pathetic. But their layout and media options? Not bad at all.

Timing is everything as the first mover in a marketplace with a new category has the advantage of creating the rules for this new market space.

Shea

I’ve had a vision similar to Josh’s for the past 20 years. I was deeply involved in IMM back in the early 90′s and although the components are now commonplace, there’s no medium or platform to integrate them all.

The advent of consumer touchscreen technology and the iPad in particular is taking us in the right direction. I envision an ‘application’ that will spawn a new term that defines this new expression of creativity. All the terminology we have describes components, but there is not yet one the describes the integration of all of them, except perhaps interactive video. Video can have all of the components of text, graphics, animation, audio, etc. – except interactivity.

Now perhaps the merging of the video game industry with MM educational content is the direction to investigate.

We’re still ahead of the curve, but everyone who had come across this thread are visionaries who will make this new industry thrive in the years to come!

We live in exciting times as technology accelerates faster than ever in human history. :)

I think the route with designing content for the iPad (and also Android-based tablets) will largely be like Web design. In other words, graphic designers and programmers will have to collaborate to produce the really *good* material. (Rarely is both skill sets found in one individual.)

If you’re aiming towards e-books, then exporting EPUB from InDesign and then using tools like sigil and calibre can get you on the path to producing a good EPUB e-book. But neither of those tools are all that designer friendly, then again, EPUB is not a design-oriented format.

If you’re like me and are looking to maintain a level of graphic design in your mobile content, then an app-based approach is best. But that requires some heavy lifting and either knowing programming or teaming up with a programmer.

A strong alternative to native apps are Web apps based on HTML5 and CSS. If you’re comfortable with Web design then you will really want to look closely at HTML5/CSS3.

On the design tools front, I’m hoping that Adobe starts focusing on developing great tools for producing content in HTML5 for mobile devices. That requires Adobe to get beyond their feud with Apple over Flash (but most things people use Flash for can be accomplished with HTML5/CSS3). Maybe the next versions of Dreamweaver, Flash, and InDesign will have many more capabilities for designers. Meanwhile, find a programmer willing to collaborate.

I´m currently looking for what Vann says “…we will need some non-programmer’s tools to utilize, much like graphic designers now have InDesign to create books and intricate page layout, so graphic designers can focus on nice designs and not on figuring out how to program”

Is there such program/authoring tool?