Gravitational Pull

Out, damn’d spot – Reviewing iPad’s great Shakespeare app

Posted on 06 May 2010

There are already a lot of very nifty iPad apps, from Entertainment Weekly‘s cool, interactive “Must List” to the show-me-the-radar greatness of Weatherbug to Amazon’s simple yet invaluable Kindle app. But so far, only one app has blown my mind: Shakespeare Pro (iTunes web link). It cost $19.99 but it’s probably worth $199.99 if you are a big fan of the bard.

Obviously, the app includes everything Shakespeare wrote from Macbeth and Hamlet to All’s Well That Ends Well plus all his sonnets and other poetry. There’s also a Charles & Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare synopsizing the plays for younger readers as fairy tales.

The user interface is simple and self-evident. Tap a play, go to the text. At the bottom of the text screen you can navigate between acts and scenes. Press the dictionary icon at the top right and all Shakespearean vocab gets a dotted underline. Tap any underlined word and get a pop-up definition. Insanely useful. A searchable concordance is also handy.

There’s a bunch of additional content, as well, ranging from biographical info to reproductions of a dozen or so famous paintings of the author. You can choose from among seven basic fonts and seven font sizes. You can also get white text on a black background or choose from among a couple of other color schemes.

The most fun feature is of course the quotations section. Open it and get a random famous quote — Frailty, thy name is woman! just popped in. There’s a direct link to the quote’s place in its text. Shake your iPad or hit the refresh button to get a new quote.

Overall, a model of what an iPad app should be. Highly recommended.

p.s. I notice Shakespeare Pro developer Readdle has simple collected works apps for Aristotle and Plato. I hope more enhanced “Pro” apps are on the way.