Wiks app for iPhone and iPad

Wiks + Information + You

Wiks provides a novel way of viewing information in Wikipedia: instead of slogging through long articles about individual topics, you quickly trace along the connections between topics. When you find the topic youre interested in, use the built-in web browser, or open the article in Safari, to read the full Wikipedia article.

This is no mere variation on the custom Wikipedia browser. Wiks uses ideas from graph theory to let you explore the structure of information, without getting bogged down in content youre not interested in. Each page’s title is a “node” or “vertex” on the graph. Follow your nodes until you get to the exact point you want to read about in full detail.

To get started, enter a search term and tap a result to begin tracing a path to the information you need. Every time you tap a topic word in the list, it becomes the new “root word” and generates its own list of related topics.

When you reach an interesting topic word, tap the Wikipedia icon to view its full article. (You can also tap the word in the title bar to see its Wikipedia page.)

Designed to help you find that particular article that is tangential to your current understanding, Wiks gets you from what you know to what you need, without forcing you to read every word in between.

Note: Sorry, Wiks currently works only with the English version of Wikipedia.