Encyclopedia Britannica – Now Available For iPod And iPhone Users!

Published for the first time between 1768 and 1771, in Edinburgh, the Britannica is currently the oldest English-language encyclopaedia still in print. Obviously, as the media moved from the offline to the online realm, Britannica followed the trend, releasing its online version, which can be visited here. Now, I just found out about a link between Britannica and Apple's iPod, and I think this is interesting enough to let you know about it, so here we go...


The iPod is, basically, a portable media player, but with the latest models (the iPod touch, to be more specific), it became more than just that - you can play games, use various software applications and, most important, connect to the Internet.

Considering the above, Britannica's engineers released an application for the iPod touch and the iPhone to bring the encyclopaedia one step closer to those using them, no matter where are they, as long as the gadgets are in place.

What we're talking about here is a web-based application with full text search capabilities and thousands of high resolution thumbnails, everything being optimized for cellphone bandwidth.

"People today want information wherever they go. They want to satisfy their curiosity the moment it's aroused, whether they're on a train, in a restaurant talking to friends, or watching a sunset on the beach. Now we can get answers to them in ways that weren't possible before.", said Dan Smith, senior vice president at Encyclopedia Britannica.