I'm happy to give a mention to this new interactive Stonehenge Guide for the iPad, written and published by Pete Glastonbury. As bloggers will know, Pete has made many constructive comments on this blog over the years, and he has a great knowledge of the stones (strange and not so strange) which pop up here and there in the literature and in the landscape. More details here:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/stonehenge-guide/id542062034?mt=11
I am enjoying this i-book and thoroughly recommend it to newcomers to Stonehenge and people who are familiar with the subject.
ReplyDeleteIt is short and to the point and can be easily absorbed on the coach trip from London - the visit will be all the more worthwhile.
Pete has some great photos related to the latest archaeology. I especially liked the very clear picture of the "periglacial stripes" which today's archaeologists associate with the reason the monument is built where it is. He also uses video to repeat interviews with respected academics from the past in a sound-byte style.
Pete Glastonbury writes in a clear and economical style that makes this material easily accessible to people with no specialist knowledge.
Super job, Pete. You also show what can be done with the new Ibooks authoring tools so that more people can publish easily to a wider audience.
I rarely write a view that is entirely positive so I might suggest that a future update include some photos of the bluestones, revealing the river like flows of the Pont Saeson rhyolites contrasted with the star studded spectacle of the spotted dolerites from Carn Menyn. The story would be even stronger with some of Dr Ixer's photos of the stones in their original settings.
Thank you Chris.
ReplyDeletea more detailed Book will be coming out in the future and will include a section on the stones from Wales after I have visited the sites for myself,
cheers,
PeteG
No problem, Pete. I'll do it this weekend from my iPad.
ReplyDeleteI hope you manage to capture the internal beauty of the stones with your equipment or make a deal for copyright. Some images from R. Bevins (I think) are really spectacular, but you need stuff like lasers and electron microscopes
Pete, done. I kept it even shorter because this is more ibooks style.
ReplyDeleteOn the technical side I wonder if you are concerned about the size - 100 MB? I suspect this is the way things are going if you want good res photos and video.
thanks Chris.
ReplyDeleteThe video and panoramas bump the size up. iTunes limit for books is 2gigs!
PeteG
Your book is a good enough reason to buy an iPad.
ReplyDeleteI am really enthusiastic how Ibooks will change publishing (I expect) and open the world up for a new generation of authors.
I hope the business side shows results. You deserve to sell a lot of copies.
I bought MPPs book on iTunes and it would have been so much better had he used some of the multi-media aspects that you employ. Actually his book and yours are companion volumes.