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Articles – The Wikipedia AppCurrent Version: 2.0

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Articles lets you easily read and discover Wikipedia Articles on your iPhone and iPod touch.

Just enter a search term and let Articles find the Wikipedia entry you are looking for. Use the integrated maps feature to learn about interesting places and historic events around your current location, or anywhere else in the world. Or simply shake your device and let Articles find an entry for you. Mark interesting entries you want to read in the future and search text in the currently open document.

Articles – Winner of the 2010 Apple Design Award!


FEATURES

– Articles features a one-of-a-kind presentation of Wikipedia articles, perfectly optimized for your iPhone and iPod touch
– A unique, chapter index control to skim through the whole article in an instant
– Search text in the currently open article
– Mark interesting entries you want to read in the future
– Switch between different Article translations with the Language Picker
– Find articles by title or content and select the Wikipedia language you are interested in
– Automatic spelling suggestions for your search text
– Use maps to learn more about nearby places
– Discover articles around the globe using maps
– "Surprise Me!" feature
– Tap on image previews to zoom in for more detail
– Rotate your device to see article photos in landscape and pinch to zoom in
– Easily share an article link by mail and copy photos to your Camera Roll or Clipboard
– Pull down the article view to lock the current screen orientation
– Pinch to increase and decrease the article text size
– Access recently viewed articles when offline
– Manage article bookmarks in folders and separate pages like in Safari
– Quickly lookup recently viewed articles by day
– Table of Contents sheet
– Automatic text hyphenation, available only on iOS 4.2 or later
– Print articles and images using AirPrint
– Articles is fully compatible with iOS 4 and the Retina display


TIPS

– Double-tap (and hold) on the article to display the Chapter Index control
– Tap the status bar to scroll back to the search bar
– Pinch the article view to increase or decrease the text size
– Pull down the article view to lock or unlock the current screen orientation
– Tap-and-hold a link to open an article in a new page
– Shake your device to open a random article
– Tap and hold on text to copy and paste article content
– Tap and hold on links and images to reveal more actions
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Articles – The Wikipedia App Screenshots


Articles – The Wikipedia App Review

Mobile Wikipedia client works well, but doesn’t stand out

Articles allows you to access and read Wikipedia on your iPhone or iPod touch. (Developer Sophiestication Software also offers a separate version of Articles for the iPad.) The $3 iPhone app offers access to a wealth of information but with one small caveat—it takes a while to get to that info.


Wikipedia to Go: The iPhone and iPod touch version of Articles offers you mobile access to Wikipedia entries; you can even bookmark entries for later reading.

Think of Articles as a pocket-sized version of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is familiar. In a way, Articles will seem familiar, too. The app uses the same navigational controls as the iPhone's Safari browser. Articles includes a search bar at the top of the screen, navigational arrows at the bottom and a "new tab" system which allows users to keep multiple pages open at a time.

Once you find an interesting article, you can bookmark it and add it to a folder for later reading. You can also save photos directly to your iPhone with a tap of a button. Articles keeps copies of previously viewed entries in its history folder for easy offline viewing. It should be noted, however, that viewing new entries requires an active network connection.

If you're looking for something new to read, Articles has you covered. The app includes a Surprise Me button, which displays a random Wikipedia entry, and a Nearby button which displays entries on places based on your iPhone's location awareness feature.

The downside? Relatively slow load times. In testing Articles, I found load times for most entries ranged between six and 14 seconds. Article length and the presence of pictures didn't seem to alter load times significantly. Six to 14 seconds might not sound like much of a lag, but I found it very slow when compared to the free version of Wikipanion, which I've had on my iPhone for more than a year.

Articles gives you mobile access to Wikipedia. It's handy and works well, but there are faster dedicated Wikipedia apps for your iPhone.

[Brendan Wilhide is a contributor to Macworld. He covers athletes and the sports industry on Twitter at Sportsin140.com.]

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