Enable a Page Turning Effect on Books for iPhone & iPad
Want to have a fancy page turning animation effect when you turn a page in the Books app for iPhone or iPad? You can adjust the page turning style in the Books app to resemble the literal turning of a page, and get a nice flashback to skeuomorphic design user experience thanks to a settings adjustment.
Long ago, before the trend of flat minimalist interface design became trendy, Apple design language was built around a concept of skeuomorphism, which is that interface objects and user experience should be familiar to known physical objects in a users world. Skeuomorphic design language was widely adored by users as it was easy to use by default, and it created a lot of fun and whimsical interface interactions, like visual page turning animations in a digital book. While skeuomorphism has mostly been bludgeoned out of existence in favor of flat minimalism, a nifty page turning effect is available in the Books app for iOS and iPadOS.
To be able to use the fun page turning animations in Books app for iPhone and iPad, you need to be sure you are running iOS/iPadOS 16.4 or newer, as earlier versions (well, except prior to iOS 7 which introduced the flat design language) do not support the feature.
How to Get a Page Turning Effect in Books for iPhone and iPad
- Open the Apple Books app on your device
- Open any ebook from the Books app, then tap on the menu icon in the corner
- Tap on “Theme & Settings”
- Tap on the Page Turning icon
- Tap on “Curl” from the options here
- Return to your ebook and turn the page, you will see a nice animation that looks like a literal page is turning on the screen
If you don’t like the page turning animation, you can always choose ‘none’, or “Slide”, by using the same settings menu.
If you want an amazing book to try this out for yourself, don’t miss the free Steve Jobs Archive ebook, “Make Something Wonderful”. Coincidentally, Steve Jobs was a proponent of having design that evoked familiarity, ease of use, and often used skeuomorphic design language to accomplish that goal, and it’s interesting to note that it was not long after his passing that Apple abandoned the skeuomorphic design trends and went all-in on the flat minimalist user interface design that continues today.
What do you think about the page turning animation in Books, do you like the way it works and looks? Do you use this yourself, or do you prefer no animations or the slide animation?
