WolframAlpha – Review
By App Type: Uncategorized
Our rating: 
By: WolframAlpha
Version #: 1.0
Date Released: 2009-10-17
Developer: Wolfram Alpha LLC
Price: 1.99
User Rating:
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If you’re a shopper, and you hear that the price of something you’ve been wanting for a while has dropped from $50 to the far more affordable $2, it’s likely that you’re going to try it out (unless you don’t have the two bucks to spare). So when the well-reviewed WolframAlpha iPhone app dropped in price to that degree, I took the opportunity to download it and check it out.
The Wolfram|Alpha app gives you immediate access to the vast resources of the Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine.
To begin, WolframAlpha requires a data or WiFi connection. This should be noted before purchase. It has a clean interface and was predominantly built for the purposes of doing research on facts. WolframAlpha uses their own database and facts engines and it can dynamically generate visualizations and tables. You can use it to compute answers to questions from finance and food, to math and medicine, to stocks and spacecraft, to wordplay and weather. Questions could be written in any form, some examples provided include "$200k mortgage at 5% for 40 yrs", "words containing letters mpg", "london sydney tokyo", "6/17/92 to Aug. 4, 1998", "100 euro to USD", "weather in Honolulu when Obama was born", "growth chart age 7 male 4’1". Answers typically come back very fast and in an easy to read/use format.
That being said, there is no way that this app is worth the original $50. Not when anybody can do a Google search for free. Granted, one could argue bias on the part of Google due to the fact that the company’s income is from advertising. In that regard, Wolfram Alpha is worth the two bucks from the lack of ads alone.
Other than the ability to search the research database, and display the results, the app doesn’t come with much else.
It does come with examples for use in case you have problems figuring out how to properly ask the questions you type into the search box. It also shows a list of recent searches and allows you to bookmark certain searches as favorites. You can also open the search in Safari or share it with friends via e-mail or Twitter.
WolframAlpha isn’t a bad app, but in the age of Google, it’s tough to sing its praises as much as other reviewers have. If money is a factor and you’re not a die-hard researcher, Google will do just fine.
Quick Take
Value:Medium.
Would I Buy Again:For $2, maybe. For $50, no.
Learning Curve:Low.
Who Is It For:Die-hard researchers that don't like Google ads.
What I Like:Clean interface. Useful information.
What I Don't Like:Difficult to get excited about the app the way others have.
Final Statement:If I was someone who did a lot of searches and couldn't easily find the information using other search engines, I would probably dish out the $2 to buy this app.
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