Review: iBook review – F9F Cougar by Detail & Scale
As I was able to secure the F9F Cougar Detail & Scale eBook offered yesterday, I'm posting my review here. Obviously any serious modeler will be familiar with the printed versions of these books, so as to general content I'll not comment, but focus on these new e-book versions. These are not just PDF's of the original print versions, but are in iBook format so are much more interactive and useful.
Viewing on my Mac was not an overwhelmingly "better" experience than thumbing through a print book, since there really were no options to zoom in on reference photos. It did make it easier to load a particular page and have the image standing there before me as reference without having to keep a book open, so easier in that regard to use. However, since I use the smallest laptop, someone with a larger laptop screen or desktop monitor would be able to see more detail as I'm certain the image size would scale to fit the screen.
The iPad is where these iBooks really shine! If you have an iBook account your document is seamlessly available on all your devices, so once downloaded to my Mac, I only had to open my iBook app on my iPad and click on the image of the book in my iBook shelf to download to that device.
Upon opening, there are several pages of added e-book content that provide some hints for navigating and maximizing the iPad format in viewing the content.
Viewing photo galleries is very handy. Click on the image and then swipe away to move through sections of photos, being able to zoom in as required to really see detail.
In several places, there are pages of color schemes or illustrations with call-outs, that at first glance seem too small to read comfortably. However, on the page you'll notice a tip to touch the images on the page to zoom in, making it easy to see more detail and read the callouts. Very handy.
We just moved 2 weeks ago and because we were downsizing, had to take about 20 boxes of books to used book shops or Goodwill. I appreciate being able to have these very useful reference books in e-format! I will no longer need the storage space to shelve them, they will be devoid of coffee stains, and they are less expensive. Seems like a win-win-win to me!
Thanks Detail & Scale for doing a great job on the conversion, and I'm sure as technology improves, so will their offerings.
Thanks, Greg.
When I read the invitation to review the book, I thought they were asking for a review of it as an information source - quality of research and so forth - so I deferred as someone without the requisite experience of this aircraft type to offer a useful overview.
Your review is more to the point of it as a digital resource, which is interesting, but I still don't know a lot about the quality of the book as an accurate historical record - service history, loadouts, theatres of service, etc.
Apologies if this seems critical, as what you've offered is concise and relevant in the circumstances, but I seem to have misunderstood the brief!
Since these books have been around for a long time, my thinking was that a) any serious modeler would already have a sense of the value of the content, based on the print versions, and that b) there are probably reviews galore on forums and book sources re: the print versions. Thus I thought the most useful aspect of a review would be from the standpoint of the usability of the e-book format. My apologies to the publisher if I misinterpreted the intention.
Cheers, Greg. No worries. It's probably me in the dark!
I've been lucky enough to secure the Demon book. I'm going to write my review at the weekend. I'm not a Demon expert but my review will be of the digital nature of the book, and of the quality of the writing and editing etc.
Thanks, Don.
I look forward to the review. As I said, I'm not being critical of Greg, only that I seem to have misread the publisher's intentions with this exercise.
My own experience of digital books is positive generally, so I think the publishing style will be popular.
Greg's point about having to offload 20 boxes of books is a case in point: a 5Gb flash drive would hold 1000!
Very comprehensive tutorial, Greg...you've definitely made the outline "user friendly". Nice job!
My thanks to Greg for the quick turn around on the review!
As to the information provided in the book, we think it's the most comprehensive book on the Cougar ever written...over 400 pages, 70,000+ words of text, 530+ photos and color detail drawings, and 43 full color aircraft profiles.
Thanks, Richard. It's a great looking format.