First Look: Wikipedia Mobile

I'll admit it -- I'm a Wikipedia junkie.

Sometimes I just pull up Wikipedia, type in the first word that comes to my head, and then start following links. It's amazing how much information is available out there, and the connections that you can find are remarkable.

Until now, most of my Wikipedia surfing was limited to one of my Macs, since I wasn't fond of the way that the information was formatted in the iPhone Web app. As you can see in the screenshots below, it was scaled down and hard to read even in landscape mode.

With the new native iPhone Wikipedia Mobile app from Comoki Software, all that has changed. The information is neatly formatted for the iPhone, using disclosure triangles to hide or show information in sections of each article. There's a summary section on most pages that can be expanded to fill the iPhone screen by tapping an arrow in the upper left corner.

Other features include the ability to look at your search history, save and view saved searches, or change the language of an article.

The Wikipedia app is available now in the App Store for US$2.99 (click opens iTunes).

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Source: http://comoki.com/wikipedia/

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iPhone App Store iPod touch First Look

I'll admit it -- I'm a Wikipedia junkie.Sometimes I just pull up Wikipedia, type in the first word that comes to my head, and then start...

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Hampton Catlin

Well, first, "Wikimedia Mobile" is trademarked and Comoki isn't licensed to use that term.

Secondly, we are working on an official WIkipedia Mobile app that should be in the store soon.

For a preview, we are running the software at http://en.m.wikipedia.org

Specially for iPhone and officially from Wikimedia.

January 10 2009 at 5:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Derek F.

I like Wikitap myself for one big reason - it will automatically guess what you were trying to type if you mistype something. With the onscreen keyboard, that alone is worth a spot on my iPod Touch... Type "appple" (extra p) and it'll still give you a list of what it thinks you're typing - with apple at the top of the list...

December 16 2008 at 8:32 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

LifeSux

Is it just me, or have the TUAW bloggers of late been writing these weird articles that review products as if they are the only ones that do what they do, and completely ignore the ones that have been around longer that are:

a) better
b) cheaper

come on, folks. We shouldn't need to scroll to the comments to get some basic research.

December 16 2008 at 7:35 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

ffresh

i think if i were to buy a wikipedia app, i'd like the proceeds to go to wikipedia

December 15 2008 at 11:15 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Big John

Wikiamo. Nuff said.

December 15 2008 at 7:29 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Benoit Cerrina

I wonder what it takes to get posts like this when publishing a new app.
This is the second I am reading and while the app is probably nice, without a comparison to the existing free apps and at least some insight why this should be better I don't see the point.

I am myself an app developper and I consider that my app is much more original (if more niche) than this one but haven't managed to have a major blog post about it. I understand they are busy but they should at least review interesting apps and avoid following each other like this

December 15 2008 at 7:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Ubaid

I've been using WikiTap and it works really well!

December 15 2008 at 5:44 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Matthew Fitzsimmons

Powerset is an excellent website that pulls in wikipedia data in an iPhone optimized format, and also has a number of other features that make it quite useful. And it's free, of course.

http://www.powerset.com/

December 15 2008 at 5:28 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Justin

Wikipanion all the way. Great developer, great app, feature-packed but they're very well integrated into the UI - no bloat or anything. It has a spot on the first page of my 'phone.

December 15 2008 at 3:15 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

jinto.lin

Or you can go to mobile.wikipedia.org

http://lifehacker.com/5110289/wikipedia-officially-launches-mobile-version#viewcomments

December 15 2008 at 2:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply