New Wikipedia app for iOS (and an update for our Android App)

Translate This Post

We launched the official Wikipedia application for Android almost two months ago and the response has been tremendous. We’ve had ~2.25 million installations and ~5000 ratings (with a 4.4/5.0 average). Preliminary reports also indicate about 23 million page views per month via the app. In short, it has been doing pretty well!

iOS App Launch

image00image02image04

Today we’re excited to announce a new version of the Wikipedia app for iOS. This has all the features from our Android app, styled to be consistent with iOS:

  • Search suggestions
  • Full text search
  • “Did you mean?” results
  • Saving pages for offline viewing
  • Share pages via Twitter, Facebook
  • Save pages to Read It Later
  • Read current page in other languages
  • Map integration to view nearby articles
  • View location of current article + nearby articles in a map
  • Set the default language
  • Navigation history features
  • … and some more!

This release is based on the same code that powers our Android application – an advantage of basing our app on Apache Cordova (previously PhoneGap). This enables us to reach the most number of platforms with the least amount of code. Fully embracing HTML5, CSS3, & Javascript commits us to the open Web technologies of the future.

Android app v1.1 release

image03

Along with the iOS app v3.1, we are also releasing an update to the Android application. This update has our most requested features and rounds out our reading experience. Major features in this release include:

  • Quick Search Bar integration
  • Open Wikipedia URLs from any application using the Wikipedia app
  • Full Text Search and ‘Did you Mean?’ correction support
  • A much better tablet interface
  • App can be moved to SD Card
  • … and plenty of bug fixes!

OpenStreetMap

image01

Previous versions of our application used Google Maps for the nearby view. This has now been replaced with OpenStreetMap – an open and free source of Map Data that has been referred to as ‘Wikipedia for Maps.’ This closely aligns with our goal of making knowledge available in a free and open manner to everyone. This also means we no longer have to use proprietary Google APIs in our code, which helps it run on the millions of cheap Android handsets that are purely open source and do not have the proprietary Google applications.
OpenStreetMap is used in both iOS and Android, thanks to the amazing Leaflet.js library. We are currently using Mapquest’s map tiles for our application, but plan on switching to our own tile servers in the near future.

What’s Next?

We are still hard at work, adding new features, fixing bugs and porting the application to new platforms (view our Roadmap). We’re also moving to a much faster and leaner 2-week release cycle that would let us fix problems and add features in a much faster way.
If you are a web/mobile developer, come help us make the app better! Our code is on GitHub, so start forking! We can be found on IRC in #wikimedia-mobile on FreeNode, and the appropriate mailing list is mobile-l.

Go get it now!

Yuvaraj Pandian, Software Developer (Mobile)

Archive notice: This is an archived post from blog.wikimedia.org, which operated under different editorial and content guidelines than Diff.

Can you help us translate this article?

In order for this article to reach as many people as possible we would like your help. Can you translate this article to get the message out?

112 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] The company just announced its Android counterpart witnessed 2.25 million installs in less than 2 months since its birth, while netting over 23 million Wikipedia page views per month. Despite the success with Google’s mobile OS, Wikipedia updated its apps with Open StreetMap in favor of the service’s “nearby view” feature. […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] the Wikimedia Foundation has released updates for both iOS and Android versions and the features are jampacked. The glaring new feature is the […]

This is great news! However there is no “s” at the end of “OpenStreetMap” 🙂

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] Wikipedia announced (via TechCrunch) that its new mobile app for iOS and Android and that it’s moving to open […]

Why can’t we edit and update pages from inside the iOS app? It would be incredible to be easily add data through our iOS devices.
I know I’d add lots.

[…] name to the list of companies dropping Google Maps in favor of OpenStreetMap. When Wikipedia announced its new app for iOS today, they also announced that they would be using OpenStreetMap exclusively for the nearby view in both […]

[…] name to the list of companies dropping Google Maps in favor of OpenStreetMap. When Wikipedia announced its new app for iOS today, they also announced that they would be […]

[…] name to the list of companies dropping Google Maps in favor of OpenStreetMap. When Wikipedia announced its new app for iOS today, they also announced that they would be using OpenStreetMap exclusively for the nearby view in both […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] name to the list of companies dropping Google Maps in favor of OpenStreetMap. When Wikipedia announced its new app for iOS today, they also announced that they would be using OpenStreetMap exclusively for the nearby view in both […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] Wikipedia’s decision, announced in a blog post, is likely to raise more questions about the company’s decision to charge so-called high-volume users of its Maps APIs, which formerly were free. In March, Google started charging between $4 to $10 per additional 1,000 loads to any site pulling over 25,000 daily loads. […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] Wikipedia’s decision, announced in a blog post, is likely to raise more questions about the company’s decision to charge so-called high-volume users of its Maps APIs, which formerly were free. In March, Google started charging between $4 to $10 per additional 1,000 loads to any site pulling over 25,000 daily loads. […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android apps. As our own Josh Constine wrote last month, […]

[…] a post on the official Wikipedia blog, the organization announced that its apps for Android and iOS would no longer use Google Maps for […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] dengan perubahan ini, mereka turut memperkenalkan aplikasi Wikipedia rasmi untuk platform iOS, membolehkan para pengguna menggunakan dan mengakses […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android apps. As our own Josh Constine wrote last month, […]

[…] a post on the official Wikipedia blog, the organization announced that its apps for Android and iOS would no longer use Google Maps for […]

[…] Wikipedia’s decision, announced in a blog post, is likely to raise more questions about the company’s decision to charge so-called high-volume users of its Maps APIs, which formerly were free. In March, Google started charging between $4 to $10 per additional 1,000 loads to any site pulling over 25,000 daily loads. […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] Wikipedia’s decision, announced in a blog post, is likely to raise more questions about the company’s decision to charge so-called high-volume users of its Maps APIs, which formerly were free. In March, Google started charging between $4 to $10 per additional 1,000 loads to any site pulling over 25,000 daily loads. […]

[…] a post on the official Wikipedia blog, the organization announced that its apps for Android and iOS would no longer use Google Maps for […]

[…] словам представителя компании, OpenStreetMap отвечает концепции, которой […]

[…] словам представителя компании, OpenStreetMap отвечает концепции, которой […]

[…] New Wikipedia app for iOS (and an update for our Android App) (wikimedia.org) Share:Share Pin ItLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. Tags: Amazon Kindle, Android, Google, IOS, Kindle Fire, Microsoft From: News, Opinion ← Dell Buys Wyse No comments yet […]

[…] more information on the new updates and features included in both the iOS and Android Wikipedia applications jump over to the Wikipedia website bog post.Source: TNW var […]

[…] Source [Wikimedia] […]

[…] schakelt nu over omdat OpenStreetMap volgens de organisatie een initiatief is in de geest van Wikipedia […]

[…] Wikipedia ha aggiornato le applicazioni mobile iOS e Android della popolare enciclopedia online, annunciando il passaggio dal servizio di mappatura di Google a quello di OpenStreetMap, “una fonte di Map Data aperta […]

[…] перейдя на открытый проект OpenStreetMap, о чем говорится в блоге фонда Wikimedia. Многие из тех кто следит за новостями компании Apple […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] schakelt nu over omdat OpenStreetMap volgens de organisatie een initiatief is in de geest van Wikipedia […]

[…] iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android […]

[…] “Our application using the previous version of Google Maps to view locations near you. Now, it is replaced OpenStreetMap feature,” writes the official blog Yuvi Panda in Wikipedia Blog. […]

[…] quotidiano di Internet dal 1996 (Leggi l’articolo originale…) Roma – Wikimedia ha deciso di abbandonare Google Maps per affidarsi a OpenStreetMap per la nuova applicazione di Wikipedia per […]

[…] повідомляється в блозі Фонді Вікімедіа, адміністрації енциклопедії вирішила […]