By now, most of you students are likely getting into the thick of the academic year, preparing for the first wave of exams and projects and presentations to come your way… But don’t freak out just yet! Here’s a list of Wolfram’s most recent apps and programs that might help make your life a little easier. After all, it never hurts to have a few powerful resources on your side. More »
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Heading back to school means stocking up on all the necessary supplies: books, pens, and Wolfram Course Assistant Apps! Whether you’re taking multivariable calculus or music theory, there’s a good chance that we have a Wolfram Course Assistant that’s perfect for you. More »
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Wolfram|Alpha apps are your guide to summer! Whether you’re interested in sunbathing, traveling, boating, stargazing, or fitness, we have an app for you. More »
My mother always loved gardening, and when I was growing up I enjoyed taking long strolls with her while she told me what all the different flowers were. She knew a lot about plants, but I remember sometimes asking her a question—like what was a plant’s taxonomic structure, or its optimal height compared to its average height—and she didn’t know what to say. Well, that’s why we’ve come up with the Wolfram Plants Reference App, available on iOS and PC. This app is for you, mom! More »
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Now available on Android devices via the Google Play store, the Wolfram Algebra Course Assistant and Wolfram Calculus Course Assistant are part of the equation for academic success. More »
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Wolfram|Alpha has released a suite of apps that cover all of your financial needs. The apps are profoundly powerful tools, allowing you to stay informed about your business’s finances and the marketplace at large while in the office or on the go. More »
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Culinary fortitude is not merely creating extravagant or exotic food. It’s not just the massive amount of hours you’ve spent on Foodgawker and TasteSpotting drooling over perfectly photographed morsels set on pretty little dishes. It goes far beyond the fact that you can, or know of someone who can, eat a raw bird’s eye chili and not have to drink three glasses of cold milk afterward. Culinary fortitude comes down to numbers. At Wolfram|Alpha, we do numbers best. More »
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If you’re a chemist, a student, a mad scientist bent on destroying the earth for irrational reasons, an enlightened scientist bent on saving the population from the mad one, or as understandably enthused about isotopes and radiation as we are at Wolfram, then you’ll love the new Wolfram Isotopes Reference App and Wolfram Radiation Protection Reference App. Released for $4.99 and $9.99, respectively, for the iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, and PC, the apps are arguably the most comprehensive set of tools for the topics so far. More »
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Recently we released the new Wolfram Geography Course Assistant App for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and PCs. Whether you’re studying for an exam or merely a geography nerd like me, there’s no better way to get either a general overview of the planet we all share or a really in-depth analysis of specific datasets. You can study Earth’s physical geography, geology and climate, political boundaries, demographics, economics, and social statistics. It might be the best $4.99 you’ve ever spent, and to prove it, allow me to attempt a persuasive argument. More »
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The latest version of our Wolfram|Alpha App for iOS just hit the iTunes App Store, and it comes with some exciting new features! Alongside visual upgrades to weather queries and the addition of links to purchase consumer products directly from Best Buy comes the biggest upgrade to our mobile app yet: using images as input.
With an in-app purchase of $0.99 comes the ability to use photos from your Camera Roll or pictures taken on the fly and input them directly into Wolfram|Alpha. Wolfram|Alpha can then provide analysis of your photo, add filters, detect features, perform color processing, and apply image effects. More »
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In continuing our goal to create “An App for Every Course, and More”, we are happy to announce the latest in our Course Assistant series of iOS apps: the Wolfram Linear Algebra Course Assistant. Powered by Wolfram|Alpha, the Wolfram Linear Algebra Course Assistant will help you work your way through homework problems, ace your tests, and gain a better understanding of linear algebra concepts!
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The next time you go stargazing, bring the power of computation along with the Wolfram Planets Reference App and Wolfram Stars Reference App for iOS. Both apps provide access to real-time data and the computational power of Wolfram|Alpha in order to perform advanced calculations and provide data on the planets and stars.
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Today we are happy to add a new addition to our line of Course Assistants for iOS: the Wolfram Mechanics of Materials Course Assistant. The app was created specifically to aid those taking their first mechanics of materials class.
Making your list and checking it twice, but still don’t know what to get for the last few people on your list? Gift a Wolfram app! From now through December 31, select apps are 50% off. We have apps for snowbirds and travelers, students and teachers, history buffs, word game enthusiasts, casino lovers, lawyers, network administrators, and lifelong learners—everyone, really! More »
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We are happy to announce our second Professional Assistant App for iOS: the Wolfram Lawyer’s Professional Assistant. This innovative app utilizes the power of Wolfram|Alpha to provide detailed reference information and data for legal professionals on the go.
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Last week we showed you some of the ways Wolfram|Alpha can display flight information. Now you can take that functionality with you wherever you go with the Wolfram Flight Information Reference App for iOS.
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Creating strong passwords is an important part of online security. Now it is even easier to create strong passwords and check the strength of existing passwords with the Wolfram Password Generator Reference App for iOS.
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We are happy to announce that we released two new entries into our line of Wolfram|Alpha-powered iOS apps: the Wolfram Investment Calculator Reference App and the Wolfram Gaming Odds Reference App. The Wolfram Investment Calculator Reference App was built specifically to help users get the most from their investments, and the Wolfram Gaming Odds Reference App provides the probabilities and odds of winning many popular card and lottery games.
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If you missed out on our previous Wolfram Course Assistant Apps sale, you are in luck this weekend. Through this Sunday, October 2, you can save up to 50% in the iTunes App Store on all the Wolfram Course Assistant Apps.
Pre-Algebra, Calculus, Physics, Statistics, Music Theory, Astronomy, and many more powerful apps are ready to help you in the classroom! More »
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We are happy to announce that today we are releasing two more Wolfram|Alpha-powered Reference Apps for iOS: the Wolfram Mortgage Calculator Reference App and the Wolfram Words Reference App.
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Today we’ve got exciting news for students everywhere—Wolfram Course Assistant Apps are on sale in the iTunes store through this Sunday, September 18. You can save up to 50%! Physics, Calculus, Algebra, and many more powerful apps are ready to help you excel this semester. Consider this a back-to-school gift from Wolfram|Alpha! More »
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Learning all about the 50 US states and the history of the presidents of the United States is a pivotal part of the education of Americans. To assist people learning about these key aspects or those who want to freshen up on their trivia, we have released the Wolfram US States Reference App and the Wolfram US Presidents Reference App, both for iOS.
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Is it really possible that yet another summer is drawing to a close? Here at Wolfram|Alpha, we’ve spent our summer getting ready to head back to school—building new course assistant apps, adding new data, and even making Wolfram|Alpha interactive with CDF. As the world’s leading knowledge engine, we’ve made it our mission to continually improve and ensure that we’re helping students and teachers around the globe explore concepts, ideas, and calculations on a deeper level than previously possible. More »
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Back in June we released the Wolfram Physics I Course Assistant to aid those taking introductory physics classes. We are now releasing the Wolfram Physics II Course Assistant for iOS to help those continuing their physics education.
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Today we are releasing our Wolfram Pre-Algebra Course Assistant App for iOS, expanding our planned series of Course Assistant Apps built using Wolfram|Alpha technology.
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Planning a trip can be exhausting, but we believe that everything becomes easier with a little data! Today we released the Wolfram Travel Assistant App, another in our line of Wolfram|Alpha-powered iOS apps. Whether you need help during trip planning or while currently on a vacation, this app is a great addition to your itinerary!
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It seems the sun won’t let up this summer, with many parts of the United States experiencing record-level temperatures. With the excessive heat comes the danger of overexposure to the sun, but it’s often hard to know you’re at risk until it’s too late. The newly released Wolfram Sun Exposure Reference App for iOS can aid in calculating just how much sun is too much and can offer recommendations on which SPF level to apply.
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Today we are pleased to unveil the Wolfram Genealogy & History Research Assistant and the Wolfram Personal Finance Assistant Apps for iOS! These new additions to Wolfram’s wide offering of specialized apps are the first in our series of Personal Assistant Apps, which use Wolfram’s vast knowledge base to enrich topics that matter most to you. Explore the world of your ancestors with the Wolfram Genealogy & History Research Assistant, the only tool that lets you discover what was going on while they lived. Map family relations and expand on what you already know about any of your ancestors with a simple, easy-to-use interface. It’s as if you’re traveling through time with the tips of your fingers.
One way you can use the Wolfram Genealogy & History Research Assistant is to track the name popularity of your family members using the app’s specialized menus. More »
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Our ever-growing family of Wolfram|Alpha-powered iOS apps is gaining two new additions today, including the first in our new Professional Assistant series, as well as another entry in our Wolfram Course Assistant Apps. Launching today for iPod touch, iPad, and iPhone are the Physics I Course Assistant and the Network Admin Professional Assistant App. We designed our Professional Assistant Apps with working professionals in mind. They include content specific to each profession and reference information a professional may look up over the course of a normal day.
The Network Admin Professional Assistant is a useful addition to a network admin’s IT toolbox, whether at home or on the job.
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Today we are pleased to announce the Wolfram Tides Calculator and Wolfram Fractals Reference Apps for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. These are the first two in our series of reference apps that utilize Wolfram|Alpha technology to shed light on some fascinating subjects. Like our series of Wolfram Course Assistant Apps, the Wolfram Reference Apps are each designed with an optimized interface and specialized keyboards to enhance usability for mobile users.
The Wolfram Tides Calculator will become your go-to guide for tide information. Calculate the present tide or today’s high and low tides, do historical computations, or plan your vacation using the tide forecast. The app can automatically detect your current location or provide data from around the world.
For example, with the Tides Calculator you can enter a future date and location to see the tide forecast for a specific date. Here is the prediction for tides in Miami on July 4:
More »
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Today we released the new Wolfram Statistics Course Assistant App for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. If you are a student of introductory statistics, the probability that you’ll love the all-new Wolfram Statistics Course Assistant is pretty high! The app will help you better understand concepts such as mean, median, mode, standard deviation, probabilities, data points, random integers, random real numbers, and more.
Learning about the normal or binomial distribution? This app will show you the probability density function as well as the cumulative density function and other information.
More »
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Do you need some help navigating your chemistry or precalculus classes? Or maybe you’re still trying to decide which classes to take this fall. Good news! Today, we’re releasing the Wolfram General Chemistry and Precalculus Course Assistant Apps, two more Wolfram|Alpha-powered course assistants that will help you better understand the concepts addressed in these classes.
If you’re taking chemistry, download the Wolfram General Chemistry Course Assistant App for everything from looking up simple properties like electron configurations to computing the stoichiometric amounts of solutes that are present in solutions of different concentrations. This app is handy for lab researchers, too!
The specialized keyboard allows you to enter chemicals by using formulas or by spelling out their names.
More »
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Everyone needs a little break when preparing for finals! That’s why we’re giving you a special break on all Wolfram Course Assistant Apps now through Sunday, May 1, 2011.
Wolfram Course Assistant Apps will help you grasp key concepts and gain better understanding of the answers, all of which will have you feeling confident and prepared to ace your final exams!
The following Wolfram Course Assistant Apps are available for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad:
Wolfram Algebra Course Assistant, now $0.99 (US)
Wolfram Calculus Course Assistant, now $1.99 (US)
Wolfram Music Theory Course Assistant, now $0.99 (US)
Wolfram Astronomy Course Assistant, now $2.99 (US)
Wolfram Multivariable Calculus Course Assistant, now $2.99 (US)
Best of luck with your finals! Our team is developing an app for every course, so be sure to check back for more helpful Wolfram Course Assistant Apps before heading to class next semester.
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Today the Wolfram|Alpha App for Android is the featured free app of the day in the Amazon Appstore! You can grab the app for your Android mobile device for free here.
The Wolfram|Alpha App for Android allows you to access expert knowledge on the go. Use the app’s specialized math keyboards, charts, and graphs adapted for mobile screens; support for native voice input; and location awareness to take full advantage of Wolfram|Alpha on your mobile device.
Don’t wait—the app is only available as the featured free app until the end of the day!
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Today we are releasing Wolfram Multivariable Calculus and Wolfram Astronomy, the next two apps on a growing list of Wolfram Course Assistant Apps. These course assistants will help students learn their course material using the power of Wolfram|Alpha.
The Wolfram Astronomy Course Assistant allows you to easily look up information on constellations and planets, but it can also calculate anything from the next lunar eclipse to the solar interior.
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Today we’re releasing the first three of a planned series of “course assistant” apps, built using Wolfram|Alpha technology.
The long-term goal is to have an assistant app for every major course, from elementary school to graduate school. And the good news is that Wolfram|Alpha has the breadth and depth of capabilities to make this possible—and not only in traditionally “computational” kinds of courses.
The concept of these apps is to make it as quick and easy as possible to access the particular capabilities of Wolfram|Alpha relevant for specific courses. Each app is organized according to the major curriculum units of a course. Then within each section of the app, there are parts that cover each of the particular types of problems relevant to that unit.
More »
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Deck your mobile device with expert-level facts and knowledge this holiday season for just $0.99! Wolfram|Alpha apps for iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Android devices are on sale through January 5, 2011.
If you’re an iPhone, iPod, or iPad user, you can download or “gift” this app through iTunes to the student, professional, or anyone else on your holiday shopping list. Android users can download the app onto their devices directly from Android Market.
Download your Wolfram|Alpha mobile app for just $0.99 to discover new facts, gain insight, and compute almost anything while on the go.
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It’s here! You can now download the all new Wolfram|Alpha App for Android on the T-Mobile Channel or Android Market for $1.99 (US).
Get answers from Wolfram|Alpha’s massive knowledge base in an instant by downloading the app for the all new T-Mobile® G2™ with Google™. Combining the power of the T-Mobile® G2™ with Google™ on the blazing fast 4G speeds of T-Mobile’s network with the power of Wolfram|Alpha creates an extraordinary experience for knowledge on the go.
The app puts Wolfram|Alpha’s growing repository of curated data, including over ten trillion data elements, and its library of tens of thousands of sophisticated computational models in the palm of your hand.
Android’s native voice-input capability lets you speak your queries to Wolfram|Alpha and get your answers hands-free.
The app’s specialized keyboards make mathematical expressions look and feel natural, enhancing usability and understanding. The keyboard comes in handy for everything from solving quadratic equations while on the bus to balancing chemical equations in the lab. More »
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Secrets can be so hard to keep—especially when your loyal users are anxiously awaiting news of a new app for a certain mobile platform! Today we’re excited to share with you that the Wolfram|Alpha App for Android will be available on October 6, 2010. We’re also pleased to announce that we’re teaming up with T-Mobile to launch the Wolfram|Alpha App for Android for the new T-Mobile® G2™ with Google™!
The Wolfram|Alpha App for Android delivers the full power of the Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine, providing you with a massive knowledge base of factual information in the palm of your hand. With the T-Mobile G2, the Wolfram|Alpha app takes advantage of the blazing fast 4G speeds of T-Mobile’s network to get you answers in an instant. Combining the power of the G2 with the power of Wolfram|Alpha creates an extraordinary experience for knowledge on the go.
Using Android’s native voice input capability, you can speak your queries to Wolfram|Alpha and get your answers hands-free. The app integrates Wolfram|Alpha’s growing repository of curated data, including over ten trillion data elements, and its library of tens of thousands of sophisticated computational models, to deliver knowledge quickly and seamlessly, on demand, anywhere. It also leverages the advanced screen capabilities of Android 2.2, providing sharp, high-resolution results. More »
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The Wolfram|Alpha App for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad is now on sale for back-to-school! Now through September 12, you can download the Wolfram|Alpha app from the App Store for only $0.99.
The Wolfram|Alpha app gives you answers and access to expert-level knowledge whenever and wherever you need it—whether balancing chemical equations in the lab, studying finance on the bus, or calculating the number of calories in your breakfast as you’re hustling down the quad.
The Wolfram|Alpha app is designed for both the iPhone and iPad, and has been specially tuned for multi-tasking under iOS 4 and for the iPhone 4’s Retina display. You only have to buy it once, leaving more change in your pocket! And with the app’s four specialized keyboards, you just might find yourself leaving your calculator at home.
Be sure to visit this blog throughout the semester to learn about new data and features available in Wolfram|Alpha. And we’d love for you to share how you’re using Wolfram|Alpha and the Wolfram|Alpha App for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad in the comments below.
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Version 1.1 of the Wolfram|Alpha App for the iPhone & iPod is now available in the App Store. The new version includes a number of new features that continue to improve the app’s unique mobile Wolfram|Alpha experience. Perhaps its most iconic feature, the specialized keyboards that greet you when you first open the Wolfram|Alpha App, have been painstakingly constructed to ease the burden of entering queries, whether you’re converting from pounds 
to euros 
or computing a numerical value for the Weierstrass p-function 
. Our goal in creating these keyboards was to form families of characters that naturally occur together both in common use and in traditional mathematical applications. We also wanted mathematical expressions to look and feel natural to enhance usability and understanding. Version 1.1 has four specialized keyboards: the default keyboard, the “math” keyboard accessed by the right-shift key 
, the “Greek” keyboard accessed by one press of the left-shift key 
, and the “symbol” keyboard accessed by a second press of the left-shift key.
To determine the optimal keyboard layout, we scoured Wolfram|Alpha’s server logs for the most commonly entered phrases that have characters with meaning in Wolfram|Alpha. Given that Wolfram|Alpha is built on Mathematica, one of its core strengths is advanced mathematics. True to form most of the commonly typed characters are related to math. For example, you would generally type the word “integrate” to compute an integral on the Wolfram|Alpha website. In the Wolfram|Alpha App you could simply type the 
key on the math keyboard. The same is true for other symbols common in math, such as 
and 
. Specifying geometric shapes, such as a triangle, is straightforward as well.
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In the spirit of the holiday season, the Wolfram|Alpha App for the iPhone & iPod touch will be on sale for US $19.99, starting December 11 (tomorrow) through December 31.
You can get it at the App Store.
And just for fun, here are some holiday-inspired nuggets of knowledge from Wolfram|Alpha:
- Eggnog turns out to be quite the guilty pleasure
- What the heck is frankincense, anyway?
- Did you know that Santa had a brief flash of popularity as a proper name?
- Koch snowflakes prove that the holidays can be pretty geeky after all.
- Where exactly are Santa Claus, the North Pole, and Christmas?
- Ever wonder about the taxonomy of the reindeer?
Happy holidays!
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It’s been little over two weeks since the Wolfram|Alpha App for the iPhone and iPod touch was released to the world on the App Store. During that time, the app has gained a substantial following, was listed as “What’s Hot” on the App Store, has ignited a passionate discussion over pricing and the viability of ambitious apps on the App Store, and has even had an unexpected bug fixed. It has been an exciting couple of weeks.
As noted in a couple of the App Store reviews, the initial release of the app wasn’t perfect. We’ve been developing commercial software for over 20 years, but despite this, it seems no matter how much effort one puts into testing, you’ll always find issues in the wild. Thanks in large part to immediate feedback through Twitter, this blog, and other blog posts about the Wolfram|Alpha App, we were able to narrow the issue down to an obscure bug in the auto-update mechanism for the in-app examples and immediately issue a fix by updating the way the Wolfram|Alpha API responds to the problematic queries. We agree with you: a $50 app should not crash.
The discussion on pricing has certainly been lively. I’d like to take a moment to respond to a number of questions that have popped up in the discussion.
Why not offer a free version of the app?
The Wolfram|Alpha website is the free version. You can access the website through Safari on the iPhone at no cost. You can even put a link to the Wolfram|Alpha web page on your home screen if you want.
If the website is free, why pay $50 for the app?
The website and the app offer different experiences in using Wolfram|Alpha. We’ve spent a great deal of time tuning the Wolfram|Alpha App for the specific needs of iPhone users. As has been observed by many, the changes aren’t dramatic. You get the exact same results from the website as you do from the app, and you have the same level and breadth of capability. We’re not limiting the website’s functionality to drive app sales. More »
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The Wolfram|Alpha App for the iPhone and iPod touch popped up on the App Store’s “What’s Hot” list today. We are delighted that Apple selected the app to be featured, recognizing the intense interest and excitement being shown in Wolfram|Alpha.
We were pleasantly surprised, too, to see the Wolfram|Alpha App appear on the store’s “Top Grossing” list on the second day it was available and remain there through the week. We’ve also been thrilled by the positive feedback from those who have purchased the app, visible in the reviews on the App Store.
If you haven’t seen the app yet, check it out.
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It’s now been a week since the first version of the Wolfram|Alpha App for the iPhone and iPod touch was released, and we’re excited to see how people are using it.
Our excitement was heightened by the opportunity to showcase the Wolfram|Alpha App at our Homework Day event and by the surprise of discovering—right in the middle of Homework Day—that there were reports of the app crashing unexpectedly. More »
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In case you yet haven’t yet heard: the Wolfram|Alpha App for the iPhone and iPod touch is now available. An enormous amount of effort went into creating this app. Thanks to the entire team for all your work.
The news broke last night and has continued today on many different sites: Mashable, Mobile Tech Addicts, Gizmodo, Rafe’s Radar on CNET, Search Engine Land, Download Squad, Daring Fireball, and many others. We certainly liked hearing…
“The mathematical and scientific information is really outstanding and it’s pretty mind-blowing the sorts of data you can extrapolate and the sorts of information that you can get back. Ultimately, this app showcases the very real potential Wolfram|Alpha has.” Christina Warren, Mashable
“I found in testing it over the weekend that I would be much more inclined to use the iPhone version than the online version of the engine. I would even say it was more ‘fun.'” Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land
“The app does the kind of high-level math that would make Texas Instruments weep. If you’re a student or someone in a math-intensive technical field, it might rock your world.” Jay Hathaway, Download Squad
“…I’m glad they’ve set the price high. There’s widespread consensus that the current race-to-the-bottom in App Store pricing discourages the development of deep, significant applications.” John Gruber, Daring Fireball
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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 checkout 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. See below for instructions on how you can add the Wolfram|Alpha icon to your home screen.
We have also noted the wide interest in having a full Wolfram|Alpha application for the iPhone and other mobile devices. Tell us more! What bells and whistles would be in your ideal Wolfram|Alpha application? Join the the conversation on this topic taking place on the Wolfram|Alpha Community site. More »
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How do you get to your Wolfram|Alpha? Perhaps you type the URL. Perhaps you use a bookmark. Or perhaps you use one of the many toolbars, widgets, gadgets, and the like that we’ve created.
Whether you’re a casual user of Wolfram|Alpha or an enthusiast, we have designed several cool tools that put Wolfram|Alpha at your fingertips.
Give these tools a test drive and tell us what you think.
You can access all of these through the Downloads link at the top of Wolfram|Alpha.
Downloads
Setup Options
Mac OS X Dashboard Widget
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Tomorrow we’ll be starting to launch Wolfram|Alpha. But today (May 14, 2009) is the seventh anniversary of the publication of Stephen Wolfram’s book A New Kind of Science.
It’s a curious—and unintentional—juxtaposition. Because in a sense NKS is the intellectual structure that’s now making Wolfram|Alpha possible. And Wolfram|Alpha is the first “killer app” of NKS.
Stephen Wolfram has written a blog today that reports on the state of NKS and explains a little bit of that connection.