iPad App Reviews: Shakespeare Pro is the Apple iPad Most Patriotic King

Posted Aug 31, 2010 at 5:47AM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: iPad App Reviews Tags: apple, educational apps

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Shakespeare Pro has great interactivity. Tilting determines the speed of auto-scrolling text on the screen, and the settings let you change font, size, and color of the text for optimum reading comfort. A simple tap on a play title brings up the text, and the bottom navigation bar allows you to jump between acts and scenes. A touch of the dictionary icon underlines all the words in Elizabethan English; hovering over the word will bring up a definition. There is a concordance to hand which is also searchable. The app contains outline stories written as fairy tales for younger readers; a great way to get children interested in Shakespeare before they hit the real deal. A cute little feature is the Shakespeare Shake! Shaking your iPad will get the Bard popping up with a memorable one-line quotation. My favorites are from Romeo and Juliet: “I am fortune’s fool”… So far this should all sound like a fantastic app. However, there have been several reports of crashiness made to Apple via iTunes, especially towards the end of certain plays. An update for iOS4 has remedied this for iPhone users, but that’s no good for iPad users yet. Readdle took the trouble to contact me personally about this issue, and it seems updates have now been released that resolve this difficulty. The dictionary used within Shakespeare Pro is a bolt on product from another developer, so as such Readdle are not entirely responsible for its breadth and comprehensiveness. Sometimes the dictionary offers definitions of words that frankly don’t need defining, and crucial Elizabethan words that are critical to a better understanding are not fully signposted in each play. This makes Shakespeare Pro not completely reliable in its functionality, although some words such as ‘argosy’ when not underlined in the text in some plays nevertheless contain a definition in the lexicon. This is an expensive app but it is also extremely comprehensive and full of insightful information. With an app of this scale, you will inevitably find the occasional niggle. Overall, top marks to Readdle. Shakespeare Pro is available for $9.99 from iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shakespeare-pro-universal/id364903765?mt=8#

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