Just like the book...
This is an electronic version of the current edition, which I have in hard cover (only that is signed by the author). As far as content goes, it is the same as the physical book, page numbers and all, and it is a great alternative to the typically dry and mind numbing aviation texts available. I learned a lot from Rod's book, and figured it would be great to have it with me all the time on my iPad whenever I feel the need for a bit of Rod's trademark humor and insights. In fact, Rod's book was instrumental (no pun intended) in my achieving 97% on my FAA written exam. Now if I can just stop having nightmares about panda-trains (read the book).
This app feels like a PDF but with an interactive table of contents. In portrait mode, you see the full page as if from the physical book. At that resolution it is not the quite the best for easy reading of the text, but it works without scrolling necessary. In landscape mode, you can hide the contents sidebar and have the page width fill the wide display. This makes the text more readable, but requires vertical scrolling. Like a PDF in iBooks, the text can not reflow. What you see is what you get, page for page from the physical book. You can pinch and zoom to enlarge the many well done diagrams and photos. Photos could benefit from higher resolution. In some ways they look even better than the printed version. Page turns are quick and the book opens to where you left off.
I would prefer is to have Rod's book in ePub format for the iBooks bookstore. That way text can reflow to fit the size, font, and page orientation as desired. You could then take advantage of all the iBooks features, such as highlighting, notes, and bookmarks. This app only offers bookmarks.
Unlike an eBook from the iBooks store, this app can easily be updated by the author. That is definitely a strong point in distributing this as an application.
As an app, there is tremendous potential for an interactive book that could greatly expand the learning experience. Imagine a live "weight and balance" tool where you can manipulate the weights and arms on a balance. Or perhaps video clips and animations illustrating a particular point.
Granted, developing an interactive iPad book is a lot of work, akin to a rewrite and video production all in one. This is a great start, and I hope Rod and the developer of this continue to improve it.
I give this four stars, mainly for fantastic content. Execution is serviceable and clean. It hasn't crashed, yet, which is more than I can say for some pilot apps I have tried. I look forward to future updates.
This app feels like a PDF but with an interactive table of contents. In portrait mode, you see the full page as if from the physical book. At that resolution it is not the quite the best for easy reading of the text, but it works without scrolling necessary. In landscape mode, you can hide the contents sidebar and have the page width fill the wide display. This makes the text more readable, but requires vertical scrolling. Like a PDF in iBooks, the text can not reflow. What you see is what you get, page for page from the physical book. You can pinch and zoom to enlarge the many well done diagrams and photos. Photos could benefit from higher resolution. In some ways they look even better than the printed version. Page turns are quick and the book opens to where you left off.
I would prefer is to have Rod's book in ePub format for the iBooks bookstore. That way text can reflow to fit the size, font, and page orientation as desired. You could then take advantage of all the iBooks features, such as highlighting, notes, and bookmarks. This app only offers bookmarks.
Unlike an eBook from the iBooks store, this app can easily be updated by the author. That is definitely a strong point in distributing this as an application.
As an app, there is tremendous potential for an interactive book that could greatly expand the learning experience. Imagine a live "weight and balance" tool where you can manipulate the weights and arms on a balance. Or perhaps video clips and animations illustrating a particular point.
Granted, developing an interactive iPad book is a lot of work, akin to a rewrite and video production all in one. This is a great start, and I hope Rod and the developer of this continue to improve it.
I give this four stars, mainly for fantastic content. Execution is serviceable and clean. It hasn't crashed, yet, which is more than I can say for some pilot apps I have tried. I look forward to future updates.
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