Zlatan on Your iPad

Soccer superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic knows all about pushing boundaries. And now following on the heels of his best-selling autobiography, I am Zlatan, comes a boundary-pushing iPad app based on the book.

The idea to make an app came from the football star's publisher Albert Bonnier and was developed by Albert Bonniers Förlag and Bonnier R&D with Ibrahimovic closely involved throughout. The app takes book reading to a whole new dimension, says Sara Öhrvall of Bonnier R&D. "We've worked hard to find exciting ways of reinforcing the text, making the text more alive with 'scenes' between the chapters, letting readers dig into interesting highlights from the book while allowing for alternative ways of getting into the text," she says.

While e-books have been a huge hit in the U.S. and are catching on in Europe, more complex e-books in the form of apps have yet to take off. "The first cars looked like the wagons behind a horse and the first TV programs like radio programs," says Öhrvall. "Likewise we can see that the possibilities with e-books aren't immediately obvious. That's why we've considered this project so important, since it gives us the chance to experiment and try and come up with the book reading experience of the future."

The book app is certainly like no other: "This is the first biography app of its kind, certainly the first developed for a soccer superstar," says Öhrvall. The app can be read vertically - similar to the print edition - with adjacent images, videos and links for further exploration. Or by swiping horizontally, readers will find the interactive scenes: visual stories highlighting defining moments of Ibrahimovic's life, created especially for the app. Plus there are a wide range of extra features, including stop-motion stories showing tricks and techniques, an interactive tattoo page, statistics, a timeline allowing readers to look at the text recreated as a chronological timeline and even the ability to navigate the story geographically on an interactive map or via GPS when traveling.

The app itself was built on the Mag+ platform for publishing print - magazines, catalogs, brochures and now books - on tablet computers. "By using Mag+, we're showing that books can be as easily adapted to a tablet as a magazine, with all the bells and whistles readers have come to expect from tablet editions." The app was produced by Boom Publishing, a unit within Bonnier Tidskrifter.

The app, available in Swedish and English, is being released today in conjunction with Ibrahimovic's return to British soil as he travels with A.C. Milan in the UEFA Champions League to face Arsenal.

"For many, Zlatan's book has been their first real reading experience," says Albert Bonnier. "It's big, but now it will be even bigger with the possibility to add a visual side to the story. This has never been done before, but now the time is ripe."

Check out a teaser film for the app here.