Touch Press, the company behind beloved iPad launch title The Elements, has launched another gem of a book/app hybrid called Gems and Jewels.
The Elements, unsurprisingly, focused on showcasing each element on the Periodic Table, offering an immersive experience that Touch Press calls “revolutionary.” The company followed up The Elements with Solar System, and now turns more terrestrial with Gems and Jewels. Fear not; while sticks and stones may break your bones, Gems and Jewels make you look cool.
Touch Press built Gems and Jewels in partnership with the University of Chicago Press and the Field Museum of Natural History, assembling 360-degree images of 300 sparkly stones for your perusal. You can rotate, examine, and zoom in on every last gem.
The app’s text comes from the book Gems and Gemstones: Timeless Natural Beauty of the Mineral World, a tome which—had I been asked to “blurb” it—I might say really rocks. Among the stony marvels contained in the book (and the app) are an Etruscan Gold necklace from Italy, an 8 carat black Diamond, and the Aztec “Sun-god Opal.”
Gems and Jewels costs $14, notably less than a single Cullinan Diamond. It requires an iPad running iOS 4.2.