Android app now offers new ways to browse Wikipedia and find trending, recommended articles

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horizontal-blogpost-color (1)Search the app (now including voice-enabled search) for the content you need now, or scroll down to see in the news articles, featured articles and pictures of the day, and more. Underlying photo via Dribbble, modified by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikipedia has been there for the past fifteen years when you needed to search a quick fact, research a topic, or settle a bet. But what about when you’re looking for something interesting to read on the metro, or have a few minutes to browse while you’re on break?
The Wikipedia app for Android has been redesigned to not only help you find the information you need now, but also to provide interesting, recommended Wikipedia content to dive into when you have a bit of spare time.

device-2016-07-25-125559View the top five most-read articles of the day on your preferred language Wikipedia. Screenshot, CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Wikimedia Mobile Apps team has redesigned the home screen of the app to show you an ‘explore feed’1 of recommended images, interesting articles, in the news content, articles based on what you’ve read, and more from Wikipedia. Each item in the feed presents content for you to preview, skim, and tap to learn more.
Here are some of the features included in the feed:

  • In the news: Current international news stories, with links to the Wikipedia articles relevant to each story.2
  • Trending articles: The top five most read articles of the day.
  • Featured picture: A bold image selected every day by the Wikipedia editor community.
  • Featured article: A featured article on Wikipedia picked daily by editors.2
  • Because you read: Recommended articles based on what you’ve read lately on Wikipedia.
  • Continue reading: An option to continue reading articles that you started, but haven’t finished reading yet.
  • Today on Wikipedia: This card takes you to the Main Page of the Wikipedia of your preferred language.
  • Randomizer: A random Wikipedia article.
  • A more prominent Search bar at the top of the feed, with integrated voice search.

device-2016-07-25-130021Scroll through recommended articles based on what you’ve read recently on Wikipedia. Screenshot, CC BY-SA 3.0.

As you scroll further down in the feed, you will see featured content from previous days—yesterday’s trending articles, yesterday’s featured picture, and more. Don’t want to see a certain card? Simply swipe it away to hide it.
For each feature shown in the feed, you also have the option to share the article using your favorite social media apps, or to save the article on a personal reading list, available even when you’re offline.
We’re also excited to tell you about how the explore feed retrieves the content that it shows you. In addition to building the actual feed in the app, we have also built the back-end service that brings together and provides this content.
We have made this service available to anyone, anywhere to reuse, remix, and build from, and not just on our Android app: we’ve structured the data provided by the service in a simple format that can be used by other apps and web applications. This means that with a single web request, you can now receive all the great content shown in our feed and use it in your own apps!  If you’re interested in learning more, please check out the documentation for our service.
You can find the app on the Google Play store now, and, as always, we welcome your feedback!
Dmitry Brant, Senior Software Engineer, Mobile Apps
Wikimedia Foundation

Footnotes

  1. This builds on an update to our Wikipedia iOS app earlier this year.
  2. “In the news” and “Today’s featured article” are currently limited to only English Wikipedia; they will be made available for other languages soon.

 

Archive notice: This is an archived post from blog.wikimedia.org, which operated under different editorial and content guidelines than Diff.

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[…] today announced a redesigned version of its Android app that not only lets you quickly check facts and verify […]

[…] today announced a redesigned version of its Android app that not only lets you quickly check facts and verify […]

[…] y siguiendo a los cambios introducidos a principios del presente año en la versión para iOS, toca el turno ahora a la versión de Wikipedia para dispositivos Android, cuya nueva actualización posibilitará que los usuarios puedan tener acceso a una serie de […]

[…] “Wikipedia has been there for the past fifteen years when you needed to search a quick fact, research a topic, or settle a bet. But what about when you’re looking for something interesting to read on the metro, or have a few minutes to browse while you’re on break? The Wikipedia app for Android has been redesigned to not only help you find the information you need now, but also to provide interesting, recommended Wikipedia content to dive into when you have a bit of spare time.” (via Wikimedia Blog) […]

[…] y siguiendo a los cambios introducidos a principios del presente año en la versión para iOS, toca el turno ahora a la versión de Wikipedia para dispositivos Android, cuya nueva actualización posibilitará que los usuarios puedan tener acceso a una serie de […]

[…] los cambios introducidos a principios del presente año(365días) en la versión(estable) para iOS, toca el turno ahora a la versión(estable) de Wikipedia para aparatos Android, cuya nueva actualización posibilitará que los usuarios puedan tener acceso a una serie de […]

[…] today announced a redesigned version of its Android app that not only lets you quickly check facts and verify […]

Are we ever going to get some offline access for Wikipedia? With the storage available on phones these days it would be great to have a real-life hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.

Already, we know Wikipedia as a big resource platform for almost everything on earth. Will downloading the app provide an online access to the web page or will it come preloaded with all the resources?

[…] y siguiendo a los cambios introducidos a principios del presente año en la versión para iOS, toca el turno ahora a la versión de Wikipedia para dispositivos Android, cuya nueva actualización posibilitará que los usuarios puedan tener acceso a una serie de […]

[…] Via:  Wikimedia […]

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Bryant, please take a look at the Kiwix app and kiwix.org. It lets you read massive content dumps offline with the zim file format. I’ve got all of Wikipedia and 35,000 books from project Gutenberg on my SD card, taking up about 100 GB.

[…] […]

[…] a los cambios introducidos a principios del presente año en la versión para iOS, toca el turno ahora a la versión de Wikipedia para dispositivos Android, cuya nueva actualización posibilitará que los usuarios puedan tener acceso a una […]

There is already offline reading in the app, you simply have to bookmark an article

[…] Android app now offers new ways to browse Wikipedia and find trending, recommended articles (blog.wikimedia.com) […]

[…] describes all sections featured on the home page of the app on the company blog, and you may want to check it […]

[…] noticia se ha revelado a través de una publicación en el blog oficial de Wikipedia, en donde se detallan a profundidad las noticias de la app, partiendo de una página de inicio […]

[…] noticia se ha revelado a través de una publicación en el blog oficial de Wikipedia, en donde se detallan a profundidad las novedades de la app, partiendo de una página de inicio […]

[…] noticia se ha revelado un Través De Una publication en el el blog oficial de Wikipedia , En Donde se detallan una depth Las Novedades de la aplicación, Partiendo De Una Página de inicio […]

[…] Wikipedia app was redesigned in order to help users find information that they need and also provide […]

[…] noticia se ha revelado a través de una publicación en el blog oficial de Wikipedia, en donde se detallan a profundidad las novedades de la app, partiendo de una página de inicio […]

[…] y siguiendo a los cambios introducidos a principios del presente año en la versión para iOS, toca el turno ahora a la versión de Wikipedia para dispositivos Android, cuya nueva actualización posibilitará que los usuarios puedan tener acceso a una serie de […]

[…] noticia se ha revelado a través de una publicación en el blog oficial de Wikipedia, en donde se detallan a profundidad las novedades de la app, partiendo de una página de inicio […]

[…] describes all sections featured on the home page of the app on the company blog, and you may want to check it […]

This is really great. It surely will give us access to all the useful resources on Wikipedia

[…] laman blog-nya, Wikipedia mengumumkan desain baru untuk aplikasi versi Android. Dalam versi rancang ulang ini, […]

[…] Vía | Wikimedia Blog […]

[…] Via: Wikimedia […]

I have to agree with Elliott. Kiwix is a significantly more useful project, IMHO. I have many of the higher-rated wikipedia articles on a 32GB sd card, with offline access – most useful.
I think the assumption that we all have internet all the time is a bit unfortunate – in particular people in developing countries. Its unfortunate that your screenshot shows mostly American politicians as “trending”. This shows that the application is clearly geared towards a subset of american audiences, with near-ubiquitous internet.

Any ETA when the update will be pushed to F-Droid?

Even in New York City I am often on a train without Web access. Alas, like the majority of smartphones, mine has no card for SD slot. Those who are out of touch most the day but can afford mightier phones ought to get them.

I have just updated the wikipedia app on my android smartphone. I must the the new update has improved the user experience and speed of the app. Given 5 starts to it on Google Play store.

[…]  Wiki app for Android has been redesigned to not only help you find the information you need now, but also to provide interesting, […]

[…]  Wiki app for Android has been redesigned to not only help you find the information you need now, but also to provide interesting, […]

[…] responsable entre otras funciones de la coordinación de desarrollos en torno a la Wikipedia ha anunciado recientemente el lanzamiento de una versión de su app con un importante rediseño para teléfonos móviles y […]

[…] responsable entre otras funciones de la coordinación de desarrollos en torno a la Wikipedia ha anunciado recientemente el lanzamiento de una versión de su app con un importante rediseño para teléfonos móviles y […]

[…] responsable entre otras funciones de la coordinación de desarrollos en torno a la Wikipedia ha anunciado recientemente el lanzamiento de una versión de su app con un importante rediseño para teléfonos móviles y […]

[…] responsable entre otras funciones de la coordinación de desarrollos en torno a la Wikipedia ha anunciado recientemente el lanzamiento de una versión de su app con un importante rediseño para teléfonos móviles y […]

The new design really looks great, I haven’t used the wikimedia app for a while .But with the new design it more accessible and user friendly than it is previous version.Thank you wikipidea for your resources,

[…] Vía | Wikimedia Blog […]

I know this information is important to remember these days almost all online activities can not be separated from the android device thanks for the information you have presented here

I love the new design. Thank you!

[…] July 28, we announced a redesign of the Wikipedia Android app, with the aim of helping people find needed information […]