Jan 25, 2010

Personal Wiki on iPhone

Since I am a new iPhone user and have used a personal wiki for years now, I want an easy way to take my wiki pages with me.

So, here are my requirements:
  • See wiki pages on iPhone
    • Rendered as HTML
    • Links should be clickable
  • iPhone app should synchronize automatically via 3G (UMTS/EDGE) and WiFi from a central location
  • Central location should be updated automatically with content from my desktop wiki
  • Bonus: Pages editable on iPhone
    • With an easy-to-remember syntax (maybe JSPWiki syntax)
    • Changes should synchronize back to central location
    • Central location should synchronize back to my desktop wiki
Next, we do some research. Google for "iphone wiki" brings way too many false hits for wikis about the iPhone or for Wikipedia clients. So we search for "personal wiki iphone" and find the following apps:

MyWiki (http://mywikiapp.com/) 1.1 [AppStore link]
  • Editor seems to support bold, italic, paragrpahs and bullet points, but no headlines.
  • "Export your articles, including links and images to a good looking HTML mini site that can be viewed in your favorite web browser"
  • No import mentioned.
  • Summary: No way to get my exixsting wiki content into it.
Trunk Notes (http://www.appsonthemove.com/trunk/) [AppStore link]
  • MarkDown syntax.
  • Links to other pages, images stored in app, URLs.
  • Via WiFi sharing: Backup your wiki as a zip file - does not include images in backups
  • Via WiFi sharing: Upload a zip of text files
  • Summary: Easy automatic sync missing, but I'll give it a try.
PicoWiki (http://www.picowiki.com/) [no app, iPhone optimized web page only]
  • Free, painless account creation
  • Easy way to export all pages as a zip file, just download it.
  • But no way to import them.
  • Syntax seems to be MarkDown (a quite nice one).
  • DonationWare: You pay a fair price.
  • Summary: As there is no way to work offline with my iPhone on the wiki pages, I stopped reviewing this.
WikiTouch (http://wikitouch.com) [AppStore link]
  • Sync with their own hosted wiki
  • Nice integration with existing apps (mail, foto, audio note)
  • Unknown wiki syntax
  • Slightly ugly user expeirence (blocky font, lime green background)
  • Exports as nice RSS 2.0 XML
  • Summary: It might work. I will try it.
    • Cannot log in to web page. Ugly authorisation form asks for username and password. Does not work.
Do it yourself  [no, this is not an app]
  • A blog post that explains how to store a dump of HTML pages, showing your wiki content, on your iPhone.
  • Summary: No way to edit pages.
Evernote (http://evernote.com)  [AppStore link]
  • In this list just for completeness. Evernote cannot handle links between notes. Nor does it handle wiki syntax. It is not a wiki.
  • Evernote is a notebook with formatted text, fotos, audio notes.
  • Syncs easly between devices (PC, Mac, iPhone, online, other phones, ...)
  • Summary: No wiki links. No deal.
So, that leaves me with Trunk Notes and WikiTouch. I'll post a comment here once I got more experience.
um

10 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 04, 2010 7:28 PM

    Thanks for this study Max, great job. Please lets get in touch if you want more information about how to start with WikiTouch, as from the first release it wasn't so easy I admit. Please contact me jfc at agiletouch dot com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Boz OrwellFebruary 08, 2010 1:55 AM

    Wikitouch does not support first.lastname@domain.com. I tried a firstlast without the dot and it worked.

    ReplyDelete
  3. OliverMay 09, 2010 5:20 AM

    Thx for this study. But what's about WikiServer. Do you some experience?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Xam.deMay 10, 2010 2:54 PM

    WikiServer (http://www.mobilewikiserver.com) has no way to synchronize with another server.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Carl-Johan SveningssonFebruary 17, 2011 11:26 PM

    I'm standing between Trunk Notes and WikiTouch for my iPad right now. WikiTouch seems to have a nicer interface and a serious sync infrastructure, Trunk Notes is simple and clean, and it seems to have added Dropbox syncing. Maybe it's just what I want. Actually, with dropbox syncing and markdown, that may answer my next thought, can I from my device push something directly online, as in publish to a public wiki too? I looked at some mediawiki editor, but that's not offline, so not what I want.

    Thanks for your investigations in the topic by the way!

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousApril 16, 2011 3:37 AM

    Have you looked into voodoopad?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Jason ArvanitisAugust 22, 2011 1:44 AM

    Very nice review!
    I was looking for a wiki too with the same specifications than you and I arrived at the same conclusions. Trunk Notes seems to be the best app but I am not sure that I can share a wiki back-up in Dropbox with another person.

    In the meantime I saw that after the last update we can link notes between them in Evernote.
    So, for the moment Evernote is the most suitable tool for me to create and share a wiki, even if I ignore what is the code language.

    ReplyDelete
  8. MiguelSeptember 21, 2011 8:12 PM

    Since yesterday, you could try KyWiki.
    It supports mediawiki syntax & synchronize the notes with dropbox.
    Look at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kypass/id425680960?mt=8

    ReplyDelete
  9. Derek HJuly 23, 2012 6:26 PM

    Hi Max,

    I've been working on an entry for the 2012 Evernote DevCup that allows you to turn an Evernote Notebook into a wiki. This would allow you to use wiki style editing (including wiki links and Markdown) to create and edit notes, but would still allow you to take your wiki content with you on the go (and edit it) using Evernote's native apps.

    If you think it might be a good fit for you, drop by the content submission page and leave some feedback!

    http://devcup.evernote.com/submissions/8669-enwiki

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousFebruary 12, 2013 9:49 PM

    My iPad app called "Personal Wiki" is free in the iTunes App Store.
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/personal-wiki/id574995802?mt=8

    It now includes export to HTML files, and other bug fixes in the new version.

    Cheers

    Roger Clark
    Freelance developer. Melbourne. Australia.

    ReplyDelete