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In the ten months since the iPad's introduction, there have been a number of signature apps that help define with the iPad experience is supposed to be. One of the first was Theodore Grey's, "The Elements." This adaptation of his hard cover book brought something abstract - the periodic table - and made it tangible. Using the same technology, Touch Press and Marcus Chown bring The Solar System in to our laps allowing us to explore our home and planetary neighbors in a way that is just as tangible as it's predecessor.
"The Solar System" begins with an animation that give a guided tour of many of the splendors the Solar System has to offer. This animation is set to a classical song written and performed by Icelandic musical artist Bjork from her upcoming collaboration, Biophilia, with director Michel Gondry. Once finished you're presented with the various planets, moons, asteroids and other bodies that comprise our solar system. Touching each brings you to the heart of the application.
In a way, science fiction has prepared us for this. But at the same time, when I'm using this application I am still awestruck. It's easy to imagine students of the future opening their digital text books and learning about the solar system. Planets pop up in front of them. They can zoom in, spin them around and have a library of information available to them for self exploration.
Much of that vision is present in this application. Touching a picture of a planetary body allows you to rotate it, and multi-touch gestures allow you to zoom in. You can also browse an integrated library of close-up images. Jupiter's moon, Europa, for instance, contains color-enhanced photos from NASA's Galileo Orbiter. The narrative to each object would be typical of a coffee-table book, containing just enough information to wet the appetite, maybe provide a few facts someone didn't know, but doesn't have the depth a student would want.
Then again, this isn't a text book. It feels like exploration. Because when we read about the perpetual storms on Jupiter, we have some idea of what that means when looking at a picture. However, when that picture begins moving, and you can see the masses of clouds arranged in bands swirling around Jupiter's great red spot, we get a different understanding and appreciation for this information.
The faults in the app center not around the content but the interface. While touch friendly, presentation and access to information suffers mildly from some UI choices inherent in new technology. Once you begin diving in to the app, it's not immediatly obvious how to navigate through the information. For example, we're being trained through apps like iBooks and the Kindle app that swiping to flip pages is the optimal way to advance through electronic books. Yet while this app contains book-like information, it is not a book and those UI conventions don't apply.
There is so much to this application that I can only begin to scratch the surface on its offerings. As with "The Elements," the content and presentation truly make learning fun and inspiring. If you have even a passing interest in the objects that make up our solar system, our sun, the planets and their moons, asteroids, comets and objects beyond, you no doubt will highly enjoy this app.
Wired: Visually impressive. Animations and videos contain as much information as the narrative. Integration with Wolfram Alpha allows access to scientific and statistical information from the web.
Tired: Some UI conventions take time to get used to.
The Solar System ($13.99 iTunes)
