Former Vice President Al Gore’s new book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” is a $4.99 iOS app designed by Push Pop Press, a startup launched by two former Apple engineers. “This app,” according to Gore, “is a new kind of book that combines text and images, as well as video, interactive info-graphics and my own audio commentary.”
It’s also bullshit, according to Jason Baptiste.
The problem with Gore’s book isn’t the content, but the fact that it’s an app. Baptiste is the co-founder and CEO of a startup called OnSwipe. The company makes a tool that uses HTML5 to enable the quick building of web-based content that looks and feels like an app, but is really just a fancy web site.
The web is better than an app for content, according to Baptiste, because it can be linked to from Twitter, Facebook and other Web sites. Feeds from social sites can be integrated as part of the content experience.
And with HTML5, web-based content can now offer the same look and/or feel as an app-delivered eBook, according to Baptiste.
The OnSwipe tool is one of many that will emerge in the coming year to simplify the application of HTML5 pixie dust to existing sites.
The promise of Web-delivered content appears to solve several problems. First is cross-platform compatibility. Right now, content makers and publishers have to choose between iOS, Android, the BlackBerry Tablet OS, webOS, etc. — or launch and maintain several apps on incompatible platforms. HTML5 enables publishers to create a web site, then transform it into something that “feels” like a glossy magazine or fancy coffee-tablet book. HTML5, of course, also works on a PC or Mac.
Second is profitability. Because Apple, for example, charges app makers one third of the price of the app for “shipping and handling,” content pricing can become a problem. Publishers must either raise the price of content apps, or take less profit — or both. An HTML5-based eBook means publishers keep all the money.
Third, is discoverability. Apps are becoming hard to find. The iPad alone already has more than 80,000 tablet-specific apps in the App Store. If every content publisher followed Gore’s approach to eBook publishing and built an app, the app stores would be overwhelmed by content titles. So how do you get discovered? Putting eBooks and other content online enables those titles to pop up in web searches for content. Search for “global warming,” “climate change” or “books by former vice presidents who lecture everyone on climate change but who themselves maintain enormous carbon footprints” and up pops Gore’s book along with the other results.
So is Baptiste right? Is HTML5 better than apps for content publishing on tablets?
The answer is a resounding “maybe.” For example, a book like Gore’s is definitely better in app form. It does things HTML5 can’t yet do. And Gore has a “platform” — he’s famous, which means discoverability is less of an issue.
I also think books like children’s books are better in app form, because the reader wants maximum interactivity and the parents want minimum off-linking.
But for many kinds of books — especially for non-fiction titles by lesser known authors — HTML5 books built with tools like OnSwipe really could make a lot of sense. Instead of publishing a book over here, a blog over there, and promoting it all with a web site, a Facebook fan page and a Twitter feed the book, blog, web site and social streams are all one thing.
Another scenario that’s probably inconceivable now but won’t be later is: all of the above. As app-building and HTML5-building tools get simpler, even medium size authors and publishers should be able to bang out apps on all platforms, plus HTML5 versions, and have all those variants look and feel more or less the same.
The argument over apps vs. HTML5 is a non-starter. Neither will replace the other. Yes, HTML5 is great. But so are apps. Publishers will have more choice.
I’m looking forward to trying OnSwipe, and I think that the service or others like it could really help transform publishing. But the idea that apps are bullshit is, well, bullshit.
125 responses to “Is Al Gore’s New iOS Book Really ‘Bullshit’?”
Wow. I think the title should be “Bitter CEO of OnSwipe Says Gore’s App is Bullshit Because it Doesn’t Use OnSwipe. I came here expecting a debate on whether the book/app’s content was bullshit based on climatology/science, not whether or not some CEO doesn’t like it because it’s an app and not based on his platform.
Regardless of his motivation, it is pure BS. Algore is the 21st century version of PT Barnum. Despite all the scientific fraud that has been committed in a desperate attempt to “prove” AGW, there are still enough suckers around to make Algore very rich.
Al Gore himself is a walking pile of bullshit so anything he writes…aa…would be bullshit. Yes sir.
Mr. CEO fails to understand that not everyone is always connected to the web or has unlimited download bandwidth. Or gives a rats behind about social networks.
And the supply of suckers that *don’t* believe in climate change seems to be even larger! Try moving to one of the places where the climate is already significantly different from what it was even ten years ago and *then* tell me global warming is BS.
I notice you used the “AGW” acronym so as to disguise what you are actually saying. Anyone who comes right out and says they “don’t believe in global warming” would be vilified of course, but it sounds soooo much more scientific and believable if you say “AGW isn’t proven” (it is actually).
yes Al Hore is full of Bull Shit
Places like Florida, where it’s still hot in the summer, same as it was 10 years ago? Or how about Hawaii, where it’s still the same as it was 10 years ago? Or Siberia, where I’m sure it’s still cold and barren, same as 10 years ago? Would you say the earth is warmer, hotter, cooler, or colder TODAY than it was 4 billion years ago?
I have no opinion of Al Gore (at least none I want to share) but I will say that Mr. Baptiste is painting with a wide brush. Apple’s website is a great example of things that can be done with HTML5 fanciness, but it’s still not as good as a native app. You can’t swipe, for example. There’s something about actually turning a page in iBooks that is awesome to me… html5 cannot do that. There’s still too big a gap between mouse and finger input.
Also, native apps are just better than their website counterparts. By and large I’d rather have a native app. Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, RSS, the list goes on. I use native apps. I use Safari (Terra) the least of any of my regular applications.
My $0.02
The article nor the comment has nothing to do with your reply. If you really need to be heard on this issue, aren’t there other articles on the web that are more suited to it?
I believe the Earth is actually cooler and with less CO2 than 4 billion years ago. Those natural smoke stacks (volcanos and sulphur vents), didn’t have to follow any environmental regulations.
I think it is important to raise awareness regarding Apple’s scams and abuses related to mobile application, their strategy to destroy the web by pushing HTML5 (which they do not truly support and implement themselves) in order to push web application into the wallen garden on which Apple applies a 30% tax is outrageous! The ban of Flash is part of it, I invite you to read my email sent to Steve Jobs this week in response to his “Thought on Flash” posted on Apple’s website last year:
http://tinyurl.com/65w3bop
I believe in climate change. It is called seasons!
I don’t just mean yearly. The earth goes through longer cycles than just yearly. Al Gore is a charlatan. Human activity has little to no effect on the planet’s temperature. Fluctuation in global temperature is closely tied to solar activity.
Where I live the weather is quite completely different than it used to be even ten years ago. Our rainfall is significantly higher, the days of sun are less and less year by year. Our weather is also much more variable than it used to be. Snow in the summer, mini heat-waves in October etc.
It’s not the only place like it, and everyone notices and talks about it all the time. Just because the weather hasn’t changed where you live and hasn’t got hotter, doesn’t mean that overall the planet isn’t warming up. I don’t want to argue about it anyway, believe what you want. You clearly don’t know much if you think that the world has to get “hotter” everywhere for global warming to be real.
Only a complete idiot would argue that global warming isn’t a real thing in any case. By doing so, you’re putting yourself in the same club as those that think the 1969 moon landing was fake, the earth is flat, or Obama is secretly Kenyan etc.
Unless you’re twelve, or some hick with a grade 6 education, you really don’t want to “go there.” It certainly won’t win you any respect in the world of science and technology.
And yet you still can’t scientifically PROVE global warming is causing this. Snow in the summer? Seeing as how it’s not summer yet… And you still haven’t answered my question as to whether or not the planet is warmer or cooler today than it was 4 billion years ago… waiting… Bueller? Bueller?
Firstly, both the article and the OnSwipe CEO seem to forget 1 simple thing on this topic, Apple didn’t create the app store to prevent HTML5 from flourishing. In fact it supports HTML5 on iOS and Mac OS. And before the App Store, when it suggested web apps were the future, no one wanted them, they wanted native apps. The reason developers make native apps is because it is what people want and are willing to buy. Its a simple matter of supply and demand.
In regards to profitability, you seem to living in dream world. Where do you think that 30% cut goes? I’ll tell you, it goes on credit card processing fees, bandwidth, marketing, system development and maintenance etc. If the content were to be sold online, the publishers or some store provider would still have to pay these costs and provide these services, so whats the difference?
Another issue is performance. I’ve yet to see HTML5 content that can deliver animations and rich interactive media (like Gore’s book does) anywhere near as well as this app, especially on mobile platforms.
Finally, what is to stop a native book-app like Gore’s from implementing social network interaction? They could implement it right now if they wished to and it’d probably be just as easy as in a HTML5 book. In fact I can name many native iOS games that interact with Facebook and Twitter.
The problem not mentioned by Baptiste is accessibility. HTML5 requires a broadband connection, a downloaded app like Gore’s ‘book’ does not. The cross platform compatibility of HTML5 is huge because publishing and developing for various platforms and distribution systems is labor intensive and many things don’t work on platforms like Android that are fragmented.
The book is definitely not bullshit- that is a stupid insult for a project that redefines everything we think about publishing and information delivery.
An ongoing discussion for sure…
What a bunch of jerks we have scattered in among the legit commenters. Try using your real names…I think you guys should moderate- and Disqus should verify names like Facebook comments.
The discredited Al Gore is now being seen for the buffoon that he is and Saturday a liberal San Francisco newspaper is calling Obama a liar….really, it’s not April Fools day either.
At first glance an HTML5 App and loadable content sounds like a better solution than a new App for every title. Each title would be smaller than the full App. But that doesn’t take into account the constantly changing features and formats that inevitably evolve. If I buy OnSwipe today to read Al Gore’s latest title will I still be able to use it to read Bo Obama’s (inevitable) autobiography in 2 years, or will I have to buy another version? A self-contained App/Title takes care of that.
The distinction between “web” and “app” will almost certainly disappear in the next 10-15 years, but I hope that the transition takes place through the “webification” of apps, rather than the “appification” of the web. Centralisation makes sense in times of resource scarcity, so as technology progresses, hopefully we move in the direction of interoperable but decentralised, rather than having everything in a few centralised locations. Centralise, and you open yourself to catastrophic failure if something goes wrong, and you also give the ‘keeper’ of the central point immense power over everyone else. For a parallel, think electricity generation in the past, and where we are going with the smart grid…
Man, you guys are pathetic and ignorant. You’ve probably read zero scientific articles on the field, and at the same time you say that there is no proof?
It is true that earth always has undergone periodic climate shifts. There are periods when it’s colder (glacial periods), separated by warmer periods (interglacial periods)… BUT the thing is, since the industrial revolution – the global temperature increased even more than expected, the temperature variations no longer followed the pattern that it used to for the last 400 thousand years. LET US solve this problem instead of arguing!
What nobody mentions is ease of purchase at the App Store and consequent profitability for developers. Unless your enhanced book is free, getting people to pay for it at the App Store is a breeze, compared with getting people to pay on the Internet.
You’re an idiot. But at least you’re not a creationist.
Global Climate Change is happening. Siberia (you mentioned above) is still cold, but there are permafrost melts now. Greenland is losing masses of glacial ice. The Artic seas have thinner ice and smaller ice minimums all the time.
Apart from some people who still say that there’s no climate change at all(!), the argument centres around whether mankind has contributed to it – hence the AGW arguments. There’s more than enough science to support this argument, and a few Exxon-funded naysayers (check it up – 90% of the nay sayers have links to Exxon). Never mind the average idiot who thinks a single cold winter/summer proves it’s all false.
The real argument that is lost by all the nay-sayers is “what can we do about the situation to minimise long-term damage to our civilisation and environment if even the average consensus outcome occurs”. For example, banning building on land under 5m above sea level (high tide), and creating tidal defences for major cities.
We all know what will happen in the end – at the last minute at 5x the cost of doing it preventatively, we’ll build enough defences to save a certain percentage of human environments. Therefore I believe that today’s nay sayers should put their names down today to promise to pay this bill should they be wrong.
Actually the trouble with it is the content. Absolute crap. HIs fatness goes to new heights in hysterical claims and phoney science to try and convince us the end of the world is coming unless we buy his carbon credits (presumably to help with his $22,000 electric bill-and that’s just for one of his houses)
Tell me where the climate is significantly different than ten years ago? I can tell you where it was significantly different 1000 years ago. Almost everywhere in the world was warmer. It was called the Medieval Warm Period. As was almost everywhere 2000 years ago in the Roman warm period (grapes in Southern England for example). But go ahead tell me where is was significantly different ten years ago.
How much more did in increase than expected? Who was expecting it and on what basis? The world came out of a mini ice age in the early 1800s’ and from what the IPCC claim the temperature went up 1.7C since 1850. Hardly unheard of in the past for 150 years. Get a grip.
“… there are still enough suckers around to make Algore very rich.”
And to pay for all the jet fuel he burns up (and pollutes the air with) as he runs around the world telling everyone *else* how to live their lives–while exempting himself from his own rules because “he’s on a mission from god.”
The issue isn’t global warming. We know it happens because the ice age ended. What is being rejected by intelligent people (including numerous scientists) and what there is *no* consensus about (despite manipulated claims to the contrary and suppression of unbiased science by the lame-street media) is the concept of “man-made” global warming. To date, the Chicken Littles choose to ignore the greatest case of global warming that ever happened occurred without the intervention of evil mankind, instead insisting that if it weren’t for humanity there would be no global warming.
“since the industrial revolution – the global temperature increased even more than expected”
Since the industrial revolution readings became more accurate and data tracking became better.
“LET US solve this problem instead of arguing!”
The science is far from settled, so no rational personal can claim there is a problem when most of the “data” proving a problem has been manipulated, falsified and consequently discredited. And in most cases, the “solutions” promoted by radicals create more problems then they solve. Just as the people of San Francisco about those great “environmentally friendly” sewage system that literally can’t even get the shit to the sewage plant.
I have to disagree. Gore is using, or at least trying to use, the tech to the fullest, rather than just hitting ‘save as pdf’ and calling it an ebook. I would love to see more books in this fashion. Not to mention magazines. Why should I have to read what so and so said when I can watch him say it. And so on.
And that use of tech, not his views, is what is being called BS
Well if they used OnSwipe you could.
“Since the industrial revolution readings became more accurate and data tracking became better.”
Yes, but that doesn’t make the other statistic unrelevant. But if it is as you say more accurate, than it proves my point even more, temperature is increasing.
“The science is far from settled, so no rational personal can claim there is a problem when most of the “data” proving a problem has been manipulated, falsified and consequently discredited. And in most cases, the “solutions” promoted by radicals create more problems then they solve. Just as the people of San Francisco about those great “environmentally friendly” sewage system that literally can’t even get the shit to the sewage plant.”
Science is never really settled, though when 97% (http://articles.cnn.com/2009-0… have consensus on that human activity is the cause of increased temperature – I think you could call it settled.
Just as you said, there was a “mini-iceage” and then temperature increased again, instead of the usual pattern – which is that interglacial periods goes to a peek level and then quite rapidly temperature decreases (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi…. Now the temperature is fluctuating, due to human activity ie. greenhouse gases.
OK, global warming is BS. Remember global cooling in the 70’s? Popular Science 1975? It’s the biggest scam going right now.
Anyone have a comment about the post? : )
The global warming debate is incredibly frustrating. I’m a scientist (not a climate scientist mind you) and seriously, only a minuscule number of people in the scientific community doubt that humans are contributing to global warming. Al of the arguments against it here in this discussion thread have been refuted numerous times. I’m not going to repeat all of the refutations here but I encourage anybody who is interested to Google issues like “global cooling in the 70s” or natural climatic cycles” to find out why these issues don’t disprove human-caused global warming.
There was no scientific consensus on global cooling int he 70s. There was ONE scientific paper published and ONE article in Time Magazine. That’s hardly consensus and not at all comparable to global warming which is well understood and backed up by data.
I think you sound dumber then them all!
His Fatness??? LMAO. Is that like Her Thighness aka Hillary Clinton?
Is this just a promo for onSwipe?
The question has never been if there IS climate change. Climate change goes on as it has been for the last few billion years. The question is whether HUMANS have contributed to it more than other natural causes (volcanoes, the sun, etc) and whether we just waste valuable resources down a hole with no bottom for some insignificant effect on that climate change.
EVERYTHING Gore says or writes is bullshit. Man made climate change is a hoax. What’s even worse is that Gore knows it.
Ha! “Algore”. You must be a Rush Limbaugh fan.
You’re a complete idiot. I don’t appreciate your idiotic example of the people who doubt the Moon landing. We know that really happned. What we don’t know is that man made climate change is really happening. The assumption that humans can change the Earth’s climate is arrogant to say the least. It is a fact that the oceans, and volcanic eruptions are the largest sources of CO2, NOT human activity. CO2 accounts for .036% of the atmosphere. The most potent greenhouse gas is water vapor. Algore is a sham. You go ahead and live your pathetic life believing his bullshit, but I won’t.
Learn the difference between the words, “then” and “than” before you start calling people dumb.
where i live now the weather has significantly changed there is never snow in the winter but in the past 3 years there has been a huge amount in snow also the summers are hotter and causing droughts. also in Florida there are more hurricanes and tropical storms than ever climate change is happening weather you like it, believe it or not.
Glad to see you actually read the article…
I agree. Not everyone wants to be online while reading a book. I addition, an HTML 5 book isn’t guaranteed to be around on a website but an app resides on your IPad or iPod. Also, anything in the web takes time to load. I went to Jason’s website and noticed each page swipe I made was followed by a progress bar and some seconds of waiting. Don’t want that for a book. Like you said, HTML 5 has its uses and so do apps. Jason seems to be self-promoting.
That’s silly. Why associate web centralising as less resource intensive? You’re going to be paying for better Internet access and companies will build resource intensive networks and data centres.
Shame on you for spreading the same troll on different websites.
Baptiste has it right…..Gore is bullshit!
Baptiste’s comment is self-serving “bullshit” (his language, not mine). Larger corporations have decades of experience with single-source multi-channel publishing. The export/conversion of/from structured content (e.g. in XML or SGML) to literally every format can be automated and you only specify the templates (and apps to render them) once. The (only) decision to be made is: is a particular format relevant (as in: is there any chance that the investment into template and app development and design will pay off). There are plenty of frameworks for publishing to iOS apps, and most of them support other (major) platforms as well. The benefits are clear: Apps work offline, you do not need to worry about bandwidth caps, they are compiled and do not need to be interpreted at runtime, they do not need to be accessed through a URL and they follow the interface guidelines of the respective platform – no HTML app does, not even OnSwipe.
Is HTML5 really a “write once, publish anywhere” solution? Not yet, maybe never. Windows Phone 7 does not even have a HTML5 compatible browser, most of the installed base of Blackberry phones does not have HTML5 compatible browsers (and even the subset of models that is running BB OS 6 mainly consists of models with a stamp-sized screen, not really useful for any publishing). Devices have vastly different screen sizes, resolutions, input methods (button layouts etc.) – “one size fits all” is a lie, and no HTML5/CSS3 toolset in existence really covers every device out there; if it would do that, it would be unaffordable.
All attempts to create an “iOS-like” user experience using HTML/CSS/JS so far have failed perfectly. Ars Technica tried to squeeze such a solution into an iOS app – everything was non-standard and abysmal (scrolling was a pain, buttons looked like shit, performance was absent) – it is one of the lowest-rated apps in the App Store ever. Baptiste is an advocate of “good enough”… the exact opposite of Apple.
On a funny side-note: Baptiste’s OnSwipe is modeled after (inspired by / shamelessly copied from / pick one) a pretty well-known and highly rated iOS app (Flipboard).
This is a bad article just trying to grab attention.
Baptiste and Cult of Mac are just attention grabbing. Not impressed
This is a bad article just trying to grab attention.
Baptiste and Cult of Mac are just attention grabbing. Not impressed
You sir, are a bigger idiot than Donald Trump. You also can’t prove that the moon isn’t made out of cheese unless you go there and taste it. Or that the sun is 1 star among billions or that the thumping in your chest is your heart pumping oxygen to your body. These are all assumptions that most of us don’t waste time disputing because we’ve heard from people smarter than us that they’re true.
Here’s a fact. Each 6.9 pound gallon of gasoline burned produces 20 pound of carbon dioxide which rises through the atmosphere to form a haze around the planet. There’s no scientific debate about that.
The sun is bright enough to pass through this haze without much effect. However, some of the light reflected off the planet gets trapped by this haze and causes a warming effect. That’s called the greenhouse effect and although it isn’t provable by laboratory testing the way the burn ratio is, there isn’t a credible scientist on the planet that disagree’s with it. Phillip Morris had people on the payroll to dispute that smoking was dangerous too.
Asking whether the planet was warmer or cooler 4 billion years ago before human life could exist is asinine and completely beside the point. We all know the planet existed before it could sustain life, in the same way we know that it will cease to exist billions of years from now if we don’t destroy it first.
What we do have is unambiguous ice core data that show that carbon dioxide levels have increased commensurately with our reliance on fossil fuels: from 180 parts per million 800,000 years ago to 270 ppm just prior to the start of the industrial revolution to 313 ppm in 1960 to the 389 ppm measured in 2010.
Surely you would agree that keeping one copy of your data in central location (and accessing it through ‘dumb’ terminals) would take less storage, network, and processing capacity than constantly mirroring and synchronising this data across separate-but-linked smart devices?
The trade-off for centralisation is always one of greater efficiency, cost-savings, and convenience at the expense of flexibility, control, and innovation. So it makes sense, as previously noted, in times of technological maturity and resource scarcity.
After all, when discussing how resource intensive something is, the evaluation always has to be *relative* to the capabilities of the system. Being less resource intensive does not mean being less capable, but requiring less resources to attain the same (static) capabilities.
So what would disprove it? When the funding dries up, I’m thinking…
Seriously, if nothing disproves it, it’s a religion, not a science. I would think the lack of a hot spot in the upper troposphere would be an everest-sized red flag on the viability of the theory, but the billions and billions in funding continues…
That doesn’t make sense. Religion is believing something without any evidence, not the absence of disproving something. Global warming could be disproved by data but that hasn’t happened. Most of the arguments against it, like I said, have been refuted and are not based on data.
There is plenty of evidence of climate change, and although I can’t comment on the upper atmosphere thing you mention, that hardly disproves the theory. Here’s an example. Gravity behaved in ways that people didn’t understand for a long time (until Einstein proposed the theory of relativity). Not understanding certain things about gravity didn’t disprove the theory of gravity because obviously gravity was observable. That just meant a more general theory was needed to explain it fully.
And anyways, all I was trying to point out was that all of the arguments against global warming posted in this discussion (such as global cooling in the 70s and natural climactic cycles) are bogus and people need to read up on them to see why.
There is a lot of funding on both ides of the issue so that is a moot point. Actually there is much more funding on the denial side (think oil companies) so if anything your funding argument is more likely to go that way. If there are billions and billions of funding for global warming research, there are hundreds of trillions of dollars in denial.
Please don’t reply because I don’t feel like wasting my time here anymore and I don’t know how to make Discuis stop notifying me of replies.
Hi Rob,
I live in southern England and we have been amazed at the quality of grapes (and wines) that we have been able to grow in the last decade. They used to be revolting bitter little things, now they are sweet and really rather tasty.
So what were you saying about changing weather in the last decade?
Sam
Thanks for the whorish link bait that drew people into a non-Mac related argument about climate change. It distracted from the whole discussion of App vs. HTML5. Kudos.
In spite of the topic the book is flawed mainly because it worries more about layout than the basic rules governing eBooks
1) text should be able to be at least resized if nothing else- not every one has perfect eye sight
2) you should be able to high light, make notes, search and book mark
3) Dictionary look up
Forget the hype and don’t waste your money like i did
Nuff said
ha, I think I might.
PushPop did an awesome job here for sure and one of the apps that finally provided something useful for content. I will say, everything they do (so far) in an app, we can do in HTML5 and on the web.
Books are a bit different than news/blog/magazine content that already exists on the web. Our biggest thing for those types of publishers is that their traffic already exists on the web. Why would they want to shift it elsewhere and deal with churn?
For books, there are a lot of different models here. Apps may make sense for super interactive types supported by celebrities, but even then I don’t know.
Not even going to touch the climate debate… ;)
all books sold as app are bs imho.
dianabol