Are we stuck?...

Posting this a bit late, my apologies. In my (somewhat lame) defense, I will say that I searched for something to report upon for quite some time. And yet... It appears that this "page" concept isn't going away any time soon. That's not to say that the page isn't changing, of course. I found a ton of ebooks, apps, what have you, all with the most innovative page designs imaginable! For example, here's one that I particularly liked: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Here is the video of the short film on which the app is based:

The app itself is a wonderful adaptation of the film, in my opinion. Going by reviews, it seems that it combines all the tenderness and quirkiness of the film with actual text. So, for instance, the pages include video clips, while the narrator reads the text. In addition, there is a lot of interactivity. The child (or adult - I would love to play around with this!) can actually play the melody of Round and Round the Mullberry Bush on the device:

Totally neat. But the page is still firmly there. Maybe this is not the best example to pick on, since it is a story about books, after all, but I maintain that this is representative of the vast majority of ebooks and apps out there. I think this statement is especially valid for kids. There are apps that are basically videos with captions, and then there are fancified books like the one above (complete with the dog-eared page turning function). 

Thinking back to the reading by Andrew Piper (from Book Was There), the "pages as frames" mindset is so evident in all the examples of "innovative" apps and ebooks I've looked through. I think it's very telling, for example, that the Fantastic Flying Books app won't let you turn the page until you've done what you needed to do on the page you were on. For example, on the first page, you need to swipe across the screen to make the wind blow (as shown by the arrows): 

Until you've done enough "wind blowing", the little dog-eared page turner won't appear. If that's not a frame, I don't know what is. I was actually sort of surprised by that - what if I want to go straight to page 4, or skip from page 2 to page 10. There must be a way to do it... 

To make my long story short, looks like we're stuck with "the page" for now. I don't think that's necessarily bad. Thinking about the page as "text on a human scale" (can't remember who said it, it's from my class notes), it seems that we really need some sort of a manageable container in which to put our text (and images, and videos, and notes...). Perhaps the focus should be not on eliminating the page, but on working on great page design that makes it easier for us to learn, to read, and to enjoy the text?