The new school year also means that research via Wikipedia is going to be on the rise. Fortunately for those with iPhones and iPod Touches, they can now access Wikipedia anywhere while on the go with Wikipanion from the iTunes App Store.

Wikipanion (iTunes link) is the best application out for Wikipedia on the iPhone and iPod Touch. This app is simply genius and gives you a simplified version of Wikipedia without leaving out any of the site's extra features. To simply the site to fit the screen size of the iPhone, the normal links that you'd see to each section of an article are foregone on the main screen. Instead, there's a small icon located at the bottom of the app that's similar to the bookmark button in Safari on the iPhone. Using this button, users can access all the sections of an article.

Looking for the list of sources, related topics, and external links for your article? There's a button to access these features also. You not only get to see the links, but you can open them in Safari. According to the developers site, loading Wikipedia pages with Wikipanion is a lot faster than accessing the Wikipedia site from the iPhone's browser. To be honest, we agree.

Wikipanion: The New College Student's Bible

With just about everything accessible from this app including pictures, links, and more, the only thing that's missing is an automatic bibliography creator. Students and Wikipedia fans alike will definitely find this app to be enjoyable. However, if you're into creating articles on Wikipedia, I'm afraid this isn't the app for you. There's no way to edit an article. However, all of Wikipedia's articles are now accessible with just one click with Wikipanion.