Wikipedia

Hi all, I have been using WikiPanion Plus for awhile now, and I may have even written an entry about this already. In any case, it seems to be the best iPad app out there for access to WikiPedia. Allows you to quickly search any topic in the Wikipedia database, and presents it in a very readable, newspaper like format. There is the main text, as well as links to related articles. In addition, photos can be viewed full screen and can lead to slide shows.

It also gives you the ability to save pages to your iPad, so that you can read them offline later, in case you will be at a location without WiFi.

You can read up more about WikiPanion Plus here: http://www.wikipanion.net/index.html?ipad

Or just go to the App Store. I think it's $2.99 or $4.99.

The second wikipedia-type app that I just downloaded (FREE) is called Discover, by Cooliris. Cooliris are the folks that created the slick way of viewing photos on a web page. In any case, they created this nice app that connects to Wikipedia in a creative way. The app presents a new topic as the front page each day, so if you are just wanting to have something to read, with no particular topic in mind, this is a great resource. You can choose to read that topic for the day, or you can swipe the screen from top to bottom and get a search bar. From there, you can search wikipedia for any existing topic.

As you can tell, Discover is designed differently. Not quite as encyclopedic in presentation, more artistic and creative.

Happy reading.

- john