[Foundation-l] iPhone App

[Brion Vibber]

Judson Dunn wrote:
> Even a nicer interface for the articles using the API rather than
> safari would probably be useful to people. Loading times would
> probably be faster etc. It wouldn't have to do much to be useful imo.

The problem isn't Safari; it's page size! :)

Many Wikipedia articles have gotten *very big* over the years, 
especially since we got less and less picky about enforcing the 32kb 
page source size warning (originally instituted because many web 
browsers in 2001 would eat your page at that point when you tried to edit).

Playing with my iPhone, I've been sometimes using the experimental WAP 
gateway (based on Hawpedia, using the HawHaw library). This breaks the 
pages down into much smaller pieces which load a *lot* faster on a slow 
mobile network.

However, it's a bit limited and sometimes breaks on large or complex 
pages. A "next-generation" mobile interface which is friendlier to page 
size, but supports full wiki and web capabilities (tables, styles, etc) 
where appropriate would be a great project... maybe a Summer of Code 
projects for some enterprising lad or lass?

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2008 <- start making some 
project ideas :D

-- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)