 
#56 (+4)
in Reference |
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WikipanionPosted in Reference on 19 Aug 2008 |
 Reviewed by Steve Litchfield |
  (12 votes, average: 4.17 out of 5)  Loading ... |
Editor’s rating: 
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Wikipedia itself is, of course, something of a worldwide phenomenon. A staggeringly huge online encyclopaedia filled almost entirely with user-written content. Not everything within it is always 100% correct, but at 99.9%, it’s good enough for most of us. And it’s spawned a generation of Wikipedia clients for most handheld devices, including several for the Apple iPhone. Wikipanion here is perhaps the most polished, presenting the essential text from most Wikipedia entries in a seamless iPhone interface.
As expected, you start with a simple search box (at the top of the screen) and enter your first search string, perhaps a person’s name or place or sport. Wikipanion then presents the pages from Wikipedia, specially formatted for iPhone use in Safari-style
zoom-and-pannable pages. You can double-tap to zoom in on something or perhaps double-tap at the top of the screen to go straight to the top of the current page.
As if the Safari-style presentation wasn’t enough (after all, you can browse the full Wikipedia site IN Safari if you really wanted to, though the page sizes in bytes mean that it’s much slower to render), Wikipanion goes the extra mile by providing hypertext links to all headings within each article. For long pieces, these really speed things up and let you get to the information you really need. The application also provides a view of ‘Related’ Wikipedia entries, again presented in usual iPhone visual and draggable style.
Serious scholars shouldn’t scorn a small utility like Wikipanion either: there’s direct access to ‘Wiktionary’, an online dictionary,
plus a text search function (again useful for really long entries), an email feature (for letting others know – or reminding yourself – about a particular entry) and a bookmark facility. Add in the ability to work in any font size you like, to suit either old or young eyes, and you’ve got an absolutely indispensable iPhone reference utility.
