Chopping down trees, filling them with words and pictures and sending pushy salesman out to offload them on the never-never to hicks and social climbers seems plain weird these days, and Britannica, the encyclopedia people, seem to get that. After seeing its business withering, the 32-volume set of books shrank onto CD-ROM, then jumped to the internet. Now there is one more way to avoid filling your bookshelves with the $2,500, Renaissance Binding 2010 Encyclopædia Britannica: An iPhone app.
In comparison to the dead-tree edition, the iPhone version, concise though it is, looks cheap at $25. It comes loaded with 30,000 articles and 800 pictures (including maps). It is also a svelte 22MB in size, and easily navigable thanks to proper search (it gives nearby suggestion for misspellings). It even has a fun looking “on this day” feature. Best of all, though, is that now we really do have a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Britannica should ‘fess up to this and send a free towel to anyone who buys the app.
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia 2010 [iTunes]
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