Rolling Stone has taken a newsstand publication, The Beatles: the final word Album-by-Album Guide, and converted it into an iPad app. The result, for the foremost half, is superb. The publication, that prices $10 on newsstands, conjointly prices $10 as an iPad app. And you are doing get your money’s value.
The app includes all of the text that's within the print publication, which suggests that each Beatles album gets a thoughtful review, some get “short appreciations” by such notables as James Taylor, Liam Gallagher, and Liz Phair, and each song gets a capsule review. additionally there are several photos of the band during a sort of settings: within the studio, on stage, backstage, goofing around, and so on. beside every song’s description, you'll faucet an arrow button, and listen to a 30-second sample of the song.
The Word: Rolling Stone’s app begins its explore every Beatles album with a thoughtful overview essay, and then goes deeper with a further short essay and track-by-track descriptions.
New Beatles fans, and people taking a primary dip into the story behind the music, can realize this app chock packed with nice background data. abundant of this is often well-trodden territory, coated in several books (Steve Turner’s a tough Day’s Write is simply one notable example), magazines, and documentaries, however even true Beatles aficionados are possible to uncover some previously unknown details.
The app’s biggest failing is that it doesn't cash in of readily obtainable multimedia: The Beatles made and released several promotional films once they stopped touring in 1966, and most are obtainable on YouTube for years, however the app doesn't offer links to those. And if you already own any (or all) of the tracks and have them on your iPad or on your home network, the app doesn't offer some way to access your iTunes library, so you'll hear complete songs from among the guide.
You can use links among the app to leap to an iTunes Store page from that you'll purchase songs and albums. therefore you'll preview and get, however not play entire tunes, albeit you’ve already laid out $150 for The Beatles Box Set on iTunes (or bought the CDs).
These are simply a couple of of the opportunities that Rolling Stone had to include multimedia into the app, and provides readers a compelling reason to buy it rather than the print publication. The photos included within the app are terrific, however you can’t zoom in on them—their size is their size, simply as in print. that for the foremost half merely means this is often extremely additional ebook than app, which Rolling Stone has to do plenty additional work if it's actually seeking to require advantage of the capabilities of the iPad and connected new technologies.