Wolfram Alpha launches $50 iPhone app

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
The official iPhone and iPod touch application for Wolfram Alpha, an answer engine from Wolfram Research, debuted on the App Store Monday with a $50 price tag. The math-oriented company's extensive search offers the ability to comb through curated, structured data, and aims to eventually "compute whatever can be computed about anything."



The application allows users to get expert answers to freeform questions, complete with visualizations, tables, and a wide range of data and information.



"Drawing on 20+ years of development, 50,000+ built-in algorithms, and 10+ trillion pieces of continually updated and curated data, the Wolfram|Alpha app is the ultimate replacement for almost any kind of calculator or reference book?and much more," the company said."



The application, built with the Wolfram Alpha API, features a native iPhone interface with a special notation keyboard, customized iPhone output, editable history, and integration with iPhone services such as maps.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 2
    nagrommenagromme Posts: 2,834member
    This plus various GPS apps create some hope that a market MAY thrive for really complex, high-powered iPhone apps. It would be a shame to see cheap games ruin that market.



    I know in the early days I paid $25 or $30 for Jaadu VNC and never looked back--well worth it.
  • Reply 2 of 2
    rcfarcfa Posts: 1,124member
    Wolfram Alpha is nice and it's complex. But the complexity is in the server, not on the client.

    Why would someone pay $50 to access something he could access for free with Safari?



    Wolfram, having experience selling it's very expensive Mathematica software, needs to wrap its head around the fact that the iPhone is a different market place. It's better to sell a few million at $4.99, than a few thousand at $49.99.



    Most games are likely more complex applications than this GUI front end for a web service.
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