Articles App for iPad, The Best for Wikipedia.

This most wide spread, most frequently used and most trusted source of information and knowledge, Wikipedia, has been made accessible from iPad too since recently. The users enter it using a standard web browser, whatever is installed on their device. This format, though quite convenient for access from a PC, is not quite so convenient for ipad development format.

This Articles application, developed by Sohpia Teutschler specially for iPad, is designed to solve this problem and make searching and reading the Wikipedia database much more convenient and less time-consuming. The main idea the application was developed around is the ease of its use. This ease starts from the very design of the app’s interface - simple enough (beginning from the very moment you download it) to make the search through the articles of the site quite effortless. An additional advantage of this application is that its design is intentionally devoid of any excessive graphical features, quite useless for this particular application with its strong focus on knowledge.

The quite modest, simple and reserved design allows users to focus on their main task and goal and save them the waste of time on unwelcome distraction the majority of iPad applications, meant for fun, so abundantly are equipped with. For users’ convenience the app’s design is the same as that of the Wikipedia website’s with an additional advantage of faster loading. The graphics, having been downloaded onto the user’s iPad once, will not require to be downloaded repeatedly every time the user visits the website. This fact makes the app even easier to use than the original website, yet maintaining all the other functionality of the original Wikipedia website. The use of this app contributes greatly to the increase of the users’ experience, particularly through the way articles from the Wikipedia library are displayed by this application: in an optimized way most convenient for the iPad format. Another useful - the maps - feature, allows exploring places of interest all around the world.

And, of course, there is a feature for the users to email links to the interesting information they found in the Wikipedia to their friends. Regardless of its strictly matter-of-fact nature this application, nevertheless, contains one fun, “Surprise Me!” feature. It reveals random articles, generated on the app, that are quite refreshing to read.