Cool Multi-Touch Page Flipping Concept Demoed on iPad

While the iPad and Apple’s iBooks make for a pretty decent reading experience, they lack much of the feel of a real book. The KAIST Institute has posted a video demonstration showing a new e-book interface that could bring realistic page-flipping to tablets.

The demo is shown running on an iPad, but it uses private APIs, which Apple does not allow in the App Store. Nevertheless, the video does show several unique ways to bring a more traditional experience to reading books on an electronic device.

As MacRumors notes, a full list of new gestures supported by the interface includes all of the following:

  • Page Flipping, by spreading pages and then flipping through
  • Page Flipping with finger bookmarking
  • Multiple page turning using multiple fingers
  • Faster swipes turning multiple page
  • Longer presses, then swiping can turn multiple pages
  • Writing the page number

It’s a pretty impressive concept – now it’s a matter either of Apple adopting APIs that make it possible for an app to be released on the App Store, or the KAIST institute modifying their app enough to be approved on the App Store.

J. Glenn Künzler

Glenn is Managing Editor at MacTrast, and has been using a Mac since he bought his first MacBook Pro in 2006. He lives in a small town in Utah, enjoys bacon more than you can possibly imagine, and is severely addicted to pie.