Hey sailor, welcome to Toolbox. This is the place where Motherboard'll be telling you every week about this or that bit of software that you really need to have on your computer or phone-computer now. Requirements for something to be in our toolbox: 1) It is actually useful, like in the sense that you might turn to it on a regular basis and for hopefully more than one task, 2) It is free, or really, really exceptionally cheap (or cheap relative to function, like a smuggled tethering app), and 3) it is useful to most people, relatively speaking. Please send your suggestions to michaelb@motherboard.tv.Maybe you're too young, but there was a time when people would buy sets of encyclopedias. Like, big shelf-filling volumes full of already outdated information. They cost a lot. My family sure couldn't spring for a set. And there were different kinds too, from different publishers. Some were for kids, some had lots of pictures, some were super-dense. Some were basically the same and competed with each other. The old world was pretty stupid.Now information is online and aggregated—mostly with success—via Wikipedia. For free. The future is great.So here's this: Wiki Offline. It's just what it sounds, an app that downloads the entirety of Wikipedia (a surprisingly reasonable 3 GB) and makes it available offline at any time. It's the anti-cloud, but even if you're connected to the internet, Wiki Offline delivers content at a much faster rate. (I can imagine this also being a much bigger deal for wi-fi-only iPad users.)It costs $10, which is pretty reasonable for what it is. Redownloading the database—for updates—costs, again, a fairly reasonable $.99. Bonus features include a shuffle option (for random pages) and some organizational tools, but mainly you're just paying for a whole lot of data and a nicely minimal interface.Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.
Advertisement