Today, everyone and their neighbor have heard about Wikipedia and use it frequently to get information on just about any subject. Heck I even used it to kick start work on my thesis this year! But if you have ever tried accessing Wikipedia on a mobile browser, you would have seen that the page is not optimized for the small screen and basically unusable. Since most of the time, you need information on-the-go and not when you’re sitting comfortably in front of your big computer screen, a solution had to be found. Enter Wapedia.mobi, the ultimate solution.
When you first access Wapedia, you are asked to select a language for search, which was one of my first surprises because I frequently use French and English versions of Wikipedia. Having this option is highly convenient for those of you who are looking for articles in a certain language. Score 1 for Wapedia.
Wapedia’s option to select a language
After you pick a language, you access the home screen, where you can directly enter a search, as well as pick your search engine : Wikipedia, Images and Taptu (read Ricky’s review) are available. You can also access the Categories and some nifty options. But the most awesome thing is that there’s a Preferences link at the bottom, allowing you to set the image and page size, and whether or not external links should be handled by Google to be mobile friendly. For example, I have the page size set to Maximum so that the whole article loads on one page and I don’t have to flick through pages. Giving the user the right to choose his settings is brilliant, so score 2 for Wapedia.
Wapedia English Home page and Preferences page.
Let’s look at the search feature now. Let’s say you wrote a word in the text box. You can tap Go to directly open the article that has the same title, or Search to look for all articles that feature that word in the title. Nifty, and score 3 for Wapedia.
Results obtained after typing “Nokia” and hitting Search
What about the pages you ask? Well, the page is organized exactly like it is on Wikipedia, with the overview at the beginning, then the different sections. The section links work and take you to the exact place on the page, which is highly convenient if you want to quickly access a certain section. Images also load (and their size is determined in the Preferences page) at their right place, links work perfectly well by opening the concerned articles in Wapedia as well. References, Further reading, External links, as well as Categories are supported. Score 4 for Wapedia.
“Biotechnology” article: the beginning and the Contents.
Accessing Wikipedia on the go is no longer an issue, and I have added the English and French language pages of Wapedia to my Bookmarks in the S60 Browser. So what are you waiting for? Point your S60 Browser to www.wapedia.mobi : it’s the world’s largest encyclopedia in your hands, and it works awesomely well!
