I previously reviewed one of the first Vooks, back in November of last year. Even in the short amount of time that has transpired since then, there’ve been some nice improvements. I purchased The Master of Rampling Gate by Anne Rice from the iTunes store for $0.99 and installed it on my first generation iPod Touch, which has the latest OS.
What I Like About the New Vook
• Gone are the short dramatizations that repeated part of the text. Instead, there are mini-documentaries that relate to the chapter. I wasn’t against the dramatization, per se, but I had not liked the way it repeated the text, providing no new content. It makes sense to me that this version of the Vook didn’t have them.
• There is now a clearer separation between the story content and the ancillary video material. Once I figured that out, I took out my earphones while I was reading, which is more comfortable for me.
• There were still images included with the text of the book.
Still Image from the Text Part of the Vook
• The videos were high quality and added quite a bit to my enjoyment of the whole Vook experience. Including Gothic Historians for a Gothic piece was fitting as were the older silent-film type clips with voice overs. It was a nice balance between engaging visuals and talking heads.
The beginning of the first video.
• I like the new slider at the bottom to help me navigate at a faster clip through the text. Gone are the up and down arrows at the top that didn’t really do anything for me.
I liked the slider on the bottom for navigation. The up and down arrows are replaced by the chapter number (3, in this case), and I can have white text on a black background. The blue link leads to a dictionary definition.
• Unlike the previous Vook that I’d read, the navigation was consistent and worked fine.
• White text on a black background–hurray!
• The icon for the app was easy to see and it was relevant.
What I Didn’t Like About the Vook
• I wasn’t able to place bookmarks, which has been a standard part of the ebook experience and a feature that I tend to use.
• After stopping and restarting the app, the text of the book doesn’t pick up where I left off. Again, I think this is pretty much expected in any ebook. Likewise, when I went to the table of contents for the book, I couldn’t easily get back to where I had been reading.
• The app bombed twice during the videos. This was never an issue with the previous Vook, but the OS has changed, I’m sure I’ve installed and uninstalled lots of apps, and you just never know where conflicts can arise. It was annoying but I’m not sure I can really fault the Vook. Oh, wait–even as I write this, the iTunes store has offered an update for “typos” and “persistence”.
• I was initially confused by the non-fiction video content at the top or end of a fiction chapter. I think this confusion probably stems from my previous experience where the videos shown in the book were dramatizations of the text. After watching the first video and checking the others, I simply read the story, then watched all of the videos afterward.
The thumbnail for the video shows Anne Rice in a coffin and I was confused since I thought it might be a dramatization of part of the text.
• I’m not sure if the gravedigger in the video about the black plague was a character or not. I’ve decided that he is, although he was so unlike the silent film actors that I couldn’t quite tell.
• Most of the videos end a little abruptly, which is fine, but I was hoping for something a little less abrupt on the last one. I call it the “last” one, although you don’t have to watch them in order.
• A final niggling detail: the video titles in the table of contents didn’t match the title as shown in the video. Oh, this is picky, I know.
Nice Improvement
I enjoyed this Vook much more than the first one and not just because it’s by Anne Rice. Some of things that I had wanted are now here (white text, video that adds context instead of repeating the story). Some items on my wish list are still missing (can’t read text in landscape, can’t listen to my own music while reading). Overall though, I was encouraged by the changes that I found and I’ll probably start to actively look for more Vooks that I might enjoy.
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