This Is What World Records Will Look Like On Your iPad
April 7, 2010
Today you get a glimpse into the future, the future of what Guinness World Records will look like on the iPad. The universally recognized authority on record-breaking achievement has released a free lite version of Guinness World Records: At Your Fingertips for iPad in order to provide you with a taste of what's to come in the full version, which should be available sometime in September.
The Guinness World Records app was designed to provide a new kind of record-viewing experience. One that features rich content in a fully interactive touch-based environment.
“The iPad provides consumers a completely new way of interacting with content. The interactive experience this device provides will revolutionize the way people digest media, and the Guinness World Records App is no exception. Never before have our readers been able to interact with and actually experience the content of our book though video, audio and graphics embedded into the media itself,” said Katie Forde, Director of IT at Guinness World Records. “Just imagine tapping a record and then watching a video of the amazing feat. We believe that interactive content is the future of the media and our iPad application is just one step in expanding Guinness World Records’ digital strategy."The developers of the Guinness World Records app really aimed to provide a unique interface, for better or worse. Each "page" in the app can be flicked through by holding and sliding two fingers across the screen (not one!). As you go from page to page all of the images in both the foreground and background slide at different levels, creating a very eye-catching transitional effect. Pages in this lite version contain nine different record environments each with items that can be tapped on to delve deeper. You can read about the record holders, view photos, videos, charts, timelines, and more. A bar located at the bottom of each page indicates how far along you are, and can also be pulled up to quickly view what each page contains. The final page of the app runs you through how to earn a spot in the record books in case you feel the need to try. The interface is definitely unique, and you can really see where they were going with it, but it isn't without its faults. The app can be painfully slow at times, taking what feels like an eternity to load certain pages and leaving you wondering if it even registered your tap. The two finger scrolling is a bit out of the norm as well, but the developers obviously did it to avoid accidental taps. Guinness World Records: At Your Fingertips Lite is merely a preview of things to come, with only a small portion of the content expected to arrive in September. If you own an iPad, it's definitely worth your time to check it out, even with its faults. The video embedded below is a demo of the app in action.
