Wikipedia has become so common place in society nowadays that it was very confusing that there wasn't a web app that made the site more easily accessible on the iPhone. Now that the App Store has launched, a few apps have hit the shelves offering a formated Wikipedia experience for the iPhone. While some of them do offer other gimmicks, like only searching Wikipedia for what's around you, Wikipanion does the whole shabang.

While not every site needs a formatted app for the iPhone, Wikipedia really benefits from it. There's so much information on each page that it's easy to miss it when you're viewing it on your iPhone. Wikipanion makes everything fit within the screen very well and even handles all the proper Wikipedia shortcuts properly.

All the functionality that you would need out of a web browser viewing Wikipedia is available through Wikipanion. Other apps had unfortunately forgotten about simple necessities such as the back button, making them nearly useless, but Wikipanion even allows you to email over the information and save the links that are important to you. Plus the associated search is very easy to use if you're looking for a similar term.

If you really find yourself in need of a more easily navigable Wikipedia, then this app is clearly for you. It does make everything much simpler and fits very well with the iPhone. But all it would take to make this app obsolete is a decent Wikipedia web app.