For those of us in need of quick info, the go-to site is most definitely Wikipedia. Now, what if we were to tell you that there's a homebrew app out there that'll allow you much easier access to its resources on your iPhone or iPod touch?

That appears to be the goal of this application developed by Tom Haukap, dubbed Wiki2Touch. This application functions as a native Wikipedia reader on your handheld, and even allows you to view the site's data offline.

This is achievable by using the transfer tool that comes with wiki2touch, which allows you to load the site's contents into your device in a compressed state. Here's a brief rundown of wiki2touch's features:

• Very quick and easy searching including suggestions
• The result contains nearly all of Wikipedia features: Templates, table of contents, all sort of lists, references, and so on. You get any information, nothing is omitted or hidden.
• Even if template support is enabled it's fast. Written in C++ this is a native iPhone/iPod Touch application.
• Templates support: You get everything from the database not only the narrative text but also the contents of the infoboxes.
• More compressed articles database and extremely small indexes in only one file. Saves space on the device.
• Image support (if images are installed)
• Easy installation on the device: Copy and ready or Installer support
• Open source

Full instructions on how to run these programs are available over at Haukap's site via the source link. Just remember that your iPhone/iPod Touch must be running on firmware 1.1.1 or above to run wiki2touch. Enjoy the download!


Download: wiki2touch v0.60
Download: wiki2touch v0.60 transfer tool (Mac OS X)
Download: wiki2touch v0.60 transfer tool (Windows)