Wolfram Alpha launches iPhone-friendly site
Wolfram Alpha is now compatible with the
Apple iPhone. The recently released website, which attempts to answer user queries directly rather than accumulating relevant links, has been redesigned in order to be viewed on the iPhone.
The announcement came via the
Wolfram Alpha blog. A statement said:
"We love all the feedback that comes pouring in from the Wolfram Alpha community and iPhone users have been begging to have Wolfram Alpha just a touch away since the beginning. We invite you to check out the Wolfram Alpha iPhone and iPod mobile page that lets you compute queries, watch the Wolfram Alpha overview video, view our gallery of examples and more, all while on the go."
Critics respond to iPhone site
While the move has had a positive reception, many industry commentators have noted that the mobile version of the site has a number of flaws. One complication involves the presentation of mobile search results in standard web style as opposed to mobile format; a number of users have commented that this makes the page difficult to read.
One user posted on the Wolfram Alpha blog:
"The search page comes up great, but once I do a search on something the website reverts to the standard website. It isn’t formatted to the iPhone and I have to zoom out to get the whole width of text into view. Is this a bug?"
A number of industry leaders have also questioned the logic of launching an iPhone version of Wolfram Alpha before resolving a number of recurring complications on the standard website.
