Google Book Search goes mobile and is tested
By Gareth Powell
Apple does not understand how to put books on ‘i’ machines. As stated before Apple does not understand the concept of proofreading. To call them useless and chapless and worse things is of little help. You simply cannot get away with that standard of proofreading for some books on the iPhone and iPod Touch machines. For some of those, standards suck. We are biased. We have been through this quite horrid routine. Many times. Many, many times.
Perhaps, if you are going to have a real go at the laughable proof reading of some Google books of the iPhone and the iPod Touch you should set up independent tests.
This is what the DC Books Examiner did. God bless its little cotton socks.
Did it work for them?
And the answer depends on the original copy.
These page images work well, or acceptably, or not too horribly, when viewed from a computer. But when they are proof read for the small screen they, sometimes, get into dire strife.
The test starts with a completely easy page which works like a dream. It is Sherlock Holmes and the original was modern type-setting, not the original version.
‘Because I made a blunder, my dear Watson — which is, I am afraid, a more common occurrence than anyone would think who only knew me through your memoirs. . . .
Excellent stuff. As you can see the original is readable (it is not the original type-setting) and the text-out version is damn near perfect.
Now another piece. And the result is:
lV~e.il!” .ÍAoHyU- AUte. U brstty/affc. su.it a. f o.tl as ~tk¿* , I s&O.IL .éfiiíjz tiotkun-) of-ttmlr1¿*y ¿i^n. sta¿rs ! Jfo” ura.ve …
And if you can read that, there is a job waiting for you in Washington decoding text from naughty sources.
In truth, what it reads is: ‘Well!’ thought Alice to herself, after such a fall as this, I shall thing nothing of tumbling down stairs! Now brave they’ll all think me.
And, no, that is not from Fanny Hill.
A lot of Web experts think that this new Google endeavor is a start in the battle against Amazon’s Kindle. If the text is properly proofread — an amazing task with a more amazing bill at the end of the day — Apple will win. But it they put out their stuff unread as much of it is, then serious rubbish will ensue. Kindle could gallop away by sticking to proof-read books and the possibility of larger type.
Plainly this subject is riveting — if you are a publisher, probably not else. But to have on an iPod Touch every book by an author you have been meaning to read is a wonderful thing.
It is, sadly, only wonderful if you do not get a blinding headache reading the thing. Expect more on this subject as we go along.
It will all come right but not immediately. But in three or four years time we will be very used to reading books on a portable screen. The Romans did it — they scratched theirs on wax — why not us?
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