Articles for iPhone makes the case for buying a dedicated Wikipedia app

Wikipedia is an amazing tool that delivers a massive chunk of the entire body of human knowledge to your web-enabled device ... for free! We all use it, we all love it, and some of us even contribute our own expertise. Wikipedia's more about the information than the interface, though, and it avoids showy designs in order to keep loading time minimal. However, if you like your Wikipedia a little more sexed-up, you can get a gorgeous $3 iPhone app called Articles.

Articles, designed by the talented Sophia Teutschler (aka Sophiestication), looks great and features an intuitive, very iPhone-friendly interface. Even the name of the app makes it sound like something Apple would release. Do you really need a Wikipedia app, though, when the website loads quickly and costs nothing?

Articles provides several tempting arguments that you do. Check out, for example, the maps feature: you can quickly pull up nearby locations that have associated Wikipedia entries. It's a tourist's info-laden dream. Articles also provides a multiple-page browsing system, like the one in Safari, so you don't have to hit your back and forward buttons all the time. There are custom views for images and info boxes, and a chapter browser for longer articles.

If you're a serious Wikipedia junkie, you'll probably want to check this out. For casual users, it may be better to hold onto your $3 and use the website instead. The price tag is very reasonable considering the amount of well-thought-out design work Sophia has done here.

Tags: articles, iphone, reference, sophiestication, wikipedia