Papercut for iPad

Books, eh? Who bothers with books any more? They’re well boring! They’re just made up of stupid black and white words that just sit there on the page! It’s like you’re expected to read them and comprehend them and put them together in your brain to get any sort of fun out of them! And even when books have pictures, the pictures don’t move. What’s the point in that?

Luckily ustwo has a plan to make books interesting. Taking a similar approach to its Nursery Rhymes With Storytime app (opens in new tab), except for grown-ups rather than toddlers, Papercut for iPad features three stories – Richard Beard's James Joyce, EFL Teacher, Nadifa Mohamed's Summer in the City and Laura Dockrill's Topple – given the full ustwo treatment, with video and audio content designed to enhance the narrative, triggered as you scroll through the written words.

Yeah, I’m in two minds about it. I like words! Words are fine by me. Add anything extra to the words and I just get distracted; your mileage may vary. It’s definitely an interesting experiment from ustwo, though, and a different approach to book publishing. It’s available now on the App Store (opens in new tab), and here’s a video in which Mills and Jonas Lennermo from ustwo – as well as the authors themselves – explain exactly what it’s all about.