Put the whole of Wikipedia on your iPhone, or iPod Touch

Stuart Corner
Monday, 11 May 2009 17:46

IT Industry - Strategy

NICTA (National ICT Australia) will debut at the CeBiT IT show in Sydney on 12 May an iPhone app that is able to store the whole of Wikipedia on an iPhone, or iPod Touch.

According to NICTA the key to the app, TiniWiki, is the compression technology it has developed which enables compressed data to be updated with fresh information, without having to first be expanded into its standard format. "The content is always current as a purchase of the TiniWiki Wikipedia Premium application enables a user to receive regular updates of changes," it says.

TiniWiki has been developed and is being marketed and supported by NICTA subsidiary mContext. The company has already set up a website (www.tiniwiki.com ) to promote the application and claims it is available on Apple iTunes. However when iTWire checked late on 11 May it was not listed.  And tiniwiki.com gives no indication of how much storage TiniWiki takes up but we'd be surprised if you have room for too many songs etc once you've put the whole of Wikipedia on your iPhone.

NICTA says the technology can be applied to non-Wikipedia content and  "will enable users to carry and access extremely large sets of information (eg reference manuals, emergency procedures, media information, etc)."

It also promises that "TiniWiki for Windows Mobile and J2ME devices are under beta test and will be available to public soon," and says: "The technology is processor-friendly and can run on virtually any smart-phone device."

Footnote: iTWire will be checking out TiniWiki at the NICTA stand at CeBit and we'll be updating this article afterwards.