London - A City Through Time
This app is outstanding! beautiful pictures, easily navigated, loads of information about each topic and very thorough. Includes several unusual sites and perspectives. It truly enriched our recent week in London and I look forward to using it during our next visit.
Fantastic App
This app is not only beautiful, but also very rich in historic detail and information. It is very interactive and easy to use. It is worth every penny of the seemingly-steep price.
London--A city thru time
2nd UPDATE:
Another star awarded. It's obvious someone's listening and working to make this a first-class app.
Now when you search on a name there is an article on the person; sometimes short, sometimes long. BUT there is now a hyperlink to Wikipedia if you want to read about someone in greater depth. What a great idea! Now if they would add such links to subjects other than Persons I'd be really pleased.
As it is I could spend hours with this app. If I'm lucky enough to get to London once more I'll bring my iPad and have the Ace of Guides.
Bravo.
UPDATE:
Another disappointment. I decided to open the section called 'Browse by Subject' and worked my way to 'Squares' for which London is justly famous. The first one on the list was Butts Square in Middlesex. There was a a very brief description, 83 words. 'OK', I thought, 'Maybe there's really not much to talk about.'. The end of the note mentioned the 18th Century politician, John Wilkes, whose name sounded familiar. There was no hyperlink allowing me to jump to his entry.
Entering the search function, I found a brief entry on Wilkes. I compared it to the entry in my CONCISE Dictionary of National Biography to 1900 (who can afford or house all 67 volumes of the un-concise version?) and found an article on Wilkes, an epitome of that in the full set. It was MUCH longer than the one here.
In the Butts Square article there were two hyperlinks, one to Archery, the other to Middlesex. That's good. It's odd, since an article exists in this app on Wilkes, that he doesn't rate a hyperlinkI I read a positive review about this in a recent Economist and even tho it is pricey I'm so interested in London I bought it at once. I've put it's icon on my iPad home page for fast access.
Original Review:
The 360* views are great; I've only done Trafalgar Square yet.
However, the search function is lame. I wanted to read about the Brompton Cemetery and it came up with nothing. There are three categories to search under: by people, by article title, and by something called 'full articles text'. I searched the three ways being very careful in my spelling. A huge disillusion.
There is the Google map function, with its customary street layout which can be converted to satellite view; nice. However, unlike the usual google option of using both simultaneously, you have to choose one or the other. I like to use both because the street map has labels; the satellite doesn't. You have a birds eye view without any idea of what you're looking at. When the street map is opened it is littered with identifying icons which can obscure what your looking for. There is an option which more or less lets you hide them.
Using the map and knowing where Brompton Cemetery is, I found it and using the icon there displayed (an appropriate skull) I was able to read a brief article about the cemetery.
Unlike many apps, if you leave the London one, upon your return you have to start all over; it doesn't hold your place. The App Store app, in which I'm writing this review, let me go to the London app to double-check what I was writing and then let me come right back to this review without having to start all over. Whew!
I'll write more of this app's pros and cons as I become familiar with it.
I'm giving it only two stars now because of the ghastly search engine. I truly hope they fix it so I can rave about it.
.
Another star awarded. It's obvious someone's listening and working to make this a first-class app.
Now when you search on a name there is an article on the person; sometimes short, sometimes long. BUT there is now a hyperlink to Wikipedia if you want to read about someone in greater depth. What a great idea! Now if they would add such links to subjects other than Persons I'd be really pleased.
As it is I could spend hours with this app. If I'm lucky enough to get to London once more I'll bring my iPad and have the Ace of Guides.
Bravo.
UPDATE:
Another disappointment. I decided to open the section called 'Browse by Subject' and worked my way to 'Squares' for which London is justly famous. The first one on the list was Butts Square in Middlesex. There was a a very brief description, 83 words. 'OK', I thought, 'Maybe there's really not much to talk about.'. The end of the note mentioned the 18th Century politician, John Wilkes, whose name sounded familiar. There was no hyperlink allowing me to jump to his entry.
Entering the search function, I found a brief entry on Wilkes. I compared it to the entry in my CONCISE Dictionary of National Biography to 1900 (who can afford or house all 67 volumes of the un-concise version?) and found an article on Wilkes, an epitome of that in the full set. It was MUCH longer than the one here.
In the Butts Square article there were two hyperlinks, one to Archery, the other to Middlesex. That's good. It's odd, since an article exists in this app on Wilkes, that he doesn't rate a hyperlinkI I read a positive review about this in a recent Economist and even tho it is pricey I'm so interested in London I bought it at once. I've put it's icon on my iPad home page for fast access.
Original Review:
The 360* views are great; I've only done Trafalgar Square yet.
However, the search function is lame. I wanted to read about the Brompton Cemetery and it came up with nothing. There are three categories to search under: by people, by article title, and by something called 'full articles text'. I searched the three ways being very careful in my spelling. A huge disillusion.
There is the Google map function, with its customary street layout which can be converted to satellite view; nice. However, unlike the usual google option of using both simultaneously, you have to choose one or the other. I like to use both because the street map has labels; the satellite doesn't. You have a birds eye view without any idea of what you're looking at. When the street map is opened it is littered with identifying icons which can obscure what your looking for. There is an option which more or less lets you hide them.
Using the map and knowing where Brompton Cemetery is, I found it and using the icon there displayed (an appropriate skull) I was able to read a brief article about the cemetery.
Unlike many apps, if you leave the London one, upon your return you have to start all over; it doesn't hold your place. The App Store app, in which I'm writing this review, let me go to the London app to double-check what I was writing and then let me come right back to this review without having to start all over. Whew!
I'll write more of this app's pros and cons as I become familiar with it.
I'm giving it only two stars now because of the ghastly search engine. I truly hope they fix it so I can rave about it.
.
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What an e-reference book should be
This is one of the most successful translations of a respected reference book to electronic format that I've ever seen, and I started as a regular user of CDROM atlases and encyclopedias in the 1980s. This, more than proably anything else released to date, really points the way to fully realizing the promise of a tablet to expand our conception of what a book can be and what it can do.
The depth of the source material is enhanced and illuminated by the app's rich multimedia components, and the illustrations, hyperlinks, and timelines provide an ideal means of exploring the first-rate history contained in the print version. Out just in time for London's Olympic close-up, this app is a great choice for anyone interested in the history of one of the world's great cities.
As for the nit-picking in some of the other reviews, I'd point out that this app is neither a game nor an academic textbook; the source book is written for the general reader and the app is designed to make that excellent material accessible and entertaining. If you love history and like it when an app really takes advantage of what your iPad can do you will not be disappointed.
The depth of the source material is enhanced and illuminated by the app's rich multimedia components, and the illustrations, hyperlinks, and timelines provide an ideal means of exploring the first-rate history contained in the print version. Out just in time for London's Olympic close-up, this app is a great choice for anyone interested in the history of one of the world's great cities.
As for the nit-picking in some of the other reviews, I'd point out that this app is neither a game nor an academic textbook; the source book is written for the general reader and the app is designed to make that excellent material accessible and entertaining. If you love history and like it when an app really takes advantage of what your iPad can do you will not be disappointed.
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Fabulous App!
This app is just amazing. So much information and the ability to move from topic to topic is great. I've spent hours on it already. I love the mix of articles, videos, pictures, maps, music and art. It's a history lovers dream.
