In this episode, Thomas Domville demonstrates and reviews the iOS app WikiTrip, a location-based audio guide that pulls curated information from Wikipedia and reads it aloud while the listener is moving, such as during a road trip, bus ride, or walk. He explains how the app works, including its reliance on location services and an active cellular connection, and notes that it is designed primarily for use on the go rather than while stationary. He walks through the main interface, describes how the app discovers nearby points of interest, and discusses key settings such as voice selection, minimum distance traveled, and minimum time between articles. He also highlights the History feature, which stores previously played items and allows the user to open the associated Wikipedia pages, and explains that the app avoids repeating content unless the history is cleared. Finally, he shares examples of points of interest the app surfaced during a trip to Branson, Missouri, illustrating the type of information WikiTrip can provide during travel.
Host: Thomas Domville
Length: 0:20:47
App Information
Name: WikiTrip – Travel Audio Guide
Developer: Björn Schefzyk
Category: Travel
Platforms: iOS
Price: Free
App Store Link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wikitrip-travel-audio-guide/id1438931523
Timestamps
00:05 Intro
00:10 Host introduction
...
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.
Thomas: Hello and welcome. My name is Thomas Domville, also known as AnonyMouse. In this podcast, I'm going to do a walkthrough and a review of an iOS app called Wikitrip. W-I-K-I-T-R-I-P. So this past weekend, Mrs. Mouse and I went on a road trip, and we were heading down to southern Missouri into the Ozark Mountains. And specific, we spent some time in Branson, Missouri itself. And while we were doing that, and while we were on the road trip, somebody on AppleVis asked, what can you do during a road trip? What, you know, obviously we can listen to books and things, but are there any apps for entertainment for things that you can do in the car? Well, there's so much you can do, but Wikitrip is one of the AppleVis contributors out there. So thank you out there for suggesting Wikitrip. What is Wikitrip? Wikitrip is an app that you can take on the road with you. So it's not just for the road or a car ride. It can be if you're on a bus. or you're walking, so essentially any time that you're moving. And what it will do, based on the location and X number of seconds, it's going to pull from the Wikipedia on your location something interesting. So some pretty top picks that other people found that the Wikipedia information is interesting. It's going to read to you. So it's got a built-in open AI voices. There's about a dozen voices you can pick from. And it's going to give you just about any information you ever would want to know. So I'm going to show you an example of what it sounds like when I'm just sitting here in the podcast room. And then I'm going to show you a couple of the POIs, points of interest that it pointed out along the way while we're going down to Branson. So that way you get an idea how this app works and if it's something that's for you to use. I enjoy this app quite a bit. It is a free app, which is amazing. Anytime there's something free and useful as this, I really enjoy it. Now, it's not really made or designed for somebody that's stationary. So in other words, it is designed to be on the go. So it's not going to appeal to everyone. Can I still use it while I'm stationary? Kind of. And I'll show you what I mean about that. So without further ado, let's take a look at WikiTrip and how this works and what you can expect from it. Now, once you install it, open up the very first time, it's going to ask permission to the location services. So in order for it to know where you are, you have to grant some access to that. So in my case, I grant it to have it during the, you can have my location service during when the app is open.
VoiceOver: WikiTrip.
Thomas: All right, so here we are in WikiTrip. I'm going to do a one-finger double-tap. Open this.
VoiceOver: WikiTrip, your personal audio guide, powered by Wikipedia.
Thomas: And it says swipe to the right.
VoiceOver: Continue button.
Thomas: You get the option to go to continue. Now, if the app is closed, this is the screen you'll see. Now, if it's running in the background, obviously when you double-tap that, it's going to bypass this screen. Now, as soon as I double-tap continue, it's going to pull my location, find the top curated wiki information for this location and information that it's going to provide to me, and then it's going to generate the IP voices. So, in other words, it takes a little bit. A rule of thumb, I have seen it. It's about two or three minutes. So it's not like a big chatty chat box that is going off all the time. It really depends on where on the road, if you're in the rural area. And most importantly, you do need cell reception. So you do need some connectivity to be able to make this app work. So it does not work offline. So, let's go ahead and double tap continue. I'm going to tap the top half of the screen after I do that and just show you what it's doing. So, it has some information up there what it's currently doing.
VoiceOver: Looking for locations.
Thomas: So, it's looking for location. Now, let's go back left.
VoiceOver: Getting info about Lee's Summit. Missouri.
Thomas: Okay, so he knows I'm in Missouri. I'm going to turn speech off at this point, and I'll explain why I did that for the time being.
VoiceOver: Speech off.
Thomas: And I'm going to wait for it to talk.
WikiTrip (Ash): Lee's Summit, Missouri, 0.4 miles east. Lee's Summit is a city in Jackson and Cass counties in Missouri, United States. It is a suburb of the Kansas City metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 101,108, making it the sixth most populous city in both Missouri and the Kansas City metropolitan area. It is the most populous city in the state that is not also a county seat. In 1865, the town was incorporated as Strother, remaining so until it was renamed Lee's Summit three years later. The city was likely named in honor of Pleasant John Graves Leah, a prominent local citizen killed during the Civil War. Lee's Summit began as an agricultural community and persisted as such until the mid-20th century. Upon the conclusion of World War II, the city began to rapidly suburbanize and grow in population, transitioning into a commuter suburb of Kansas City. During this period of growth, Lee's Summit developed a well-funded public school district. The school district has consistently ranked among the city's top employers alongside federal government offices, health care facilities, and retail centers. The city has a historic downtown with an Amtrak station, several human-made lake reservoirs, and several parks.
Thomas: All right, so there's the first instance in this location and what it thought would be interesting to read to you. Now, turn VoiceOver off. This is optional to you. It's not going to read the whole thing, which is a good thing, so it's not going to show you any text of what it just read to you. Like you have seen in some of the apps, it's truly audio-based. It's just going to prevent from VoiceOver just talking. Like I said, it's just optional. It's not required, so I'm going to turn that back on.
VoiceOver: Speech on.
Thomas: On. So at this point, it's going to tick down. I'm going to go to the top here.
VoiceOver: Move 150 feet to discover more.
Thomas: All right, so you may see a countdown ticker. By default, it's 30 seconds, and I'll explain that in a moment here. But the most important thing, it says in order for it to go to the next audio of WikiTrip, you have to move. So the default distance is 150 feet. So essentially, it was designed for you to be on the go. That's what I kind of mentioned before the demonstration here. So you get an idea this got to be it works when you're walking. Now, before we do anything, before it's not going to pull up until I go 150 feet. So if I go to the right here.
VoiceOver: Stop button.
Thomas: You can simply stop it here. This is more of a pause because if you go to the app switch and just kill the WikiTrip in general, that will kill it too. This is just basically for a pause. If you're on the road and you just want to stop, maybe you took a detour or something, whatever you need to pause it, that's how you can stop and pause it for the moment. Go to the right.
VoiceOver: Gear shape. Button.
Thomas: There's a gear shape. That is your settings. And from the settings, you've got a number of things you can do. So let's go ahead and go in here.
VoiceOver: Settings. Headings.
Thomas: And then it takes you to the settings page. Top right is your done button. Now, there's not a whole lot in here, but it is worth coming in here for the first time and set up the way you want it. Here are the few things you can change.
VoiceOver: Location. Headings. Location, while using app, button.
Thomas: Right now, that's my default, while using app. If for any reason you want to change that, double tap that. You can always set it to always if you want.
VoiceOver: Playback, heading, voice, ash, button.
Thomas: Here is the voice. As I mentioned before, there's about a dozen voices you can choose from. Right now, I choose ash. If you do a one-finger double-tap on that, go into a set list of voices. Now, the only thing that it doesn't do, it doesn't do a preview of the voice. So it's kind of, eh, I kind of wish I hear the voices first, but nonetheless, I just want to let you know there is no way to preview the voice. You've got to find the voice that you want to, that you think might be interesting. It kind of gives you a little comment of what that personality of that person is, and you can double-tap that, and that's how you select that voice.
VoiceOver: Minimum. Distance.
Thomas: Here is the distance. So... 150 feet.
VoiceOver: By default, it's 150 feet.
Thomas: Yes, you can change this. You can... Decrement. 150. Button. Decrease the range. Increment. 150. Button. You can also... Increase the range. I can see why you want to decrease it if you're a walker. Maybe you want it to go off a little bit more often. You're not walking as far that you want it to be able to trigger off. So I can get that. But by default, 150 feet, that is pretty reasonable for being on a car ride. So I'm okay with that.
VoiceOver: Minimum time is 30 seconds.
Thomas: Now, theoretically... If you go 150 feet within 30 seconds, it's going to play the next set of your WikiTrip information. Now, in saying that, it does take some time. So you really need to have good cell reception. As I mentioned, it's not something that you can work offline, so you've got to have good cell reception. But the rule of thumb is about two or three minutes, really. to find the location, pull up the next set of Wikipedia that you might be interested in listening to, and then generate the AI voices for it before it starts playing, about two, three minutes. And really, that's okay with me. I like that. But if you like it a little longer or a little less, you can increase and decrease this time.
VoiceOver: Decrement, 30, button. Increment, 30, button. A new article plays only after both the minimum distance and time since the last article are met.
Thomas: So there you have it. So it's not going to be a chat box like I mentioned before. It's not going to go off every 30 seconds just because you have a 30 seconds. It really is going to take a little bit longer. And that is if there is any information pertained in the area that you're going. So you might be in a rural area that has not much in terms of Wikipedia sources. So that's something to think about too.
VoiceOver: History, heading.
Thomas: Now we have the history section.
VoiceOver: Previous articles, one articles, buttons.
Thomas: The really cool part about this, guys, and I reset this just for the podcast. When I was down in Branson, I probably pulled up about 30-some wicked trivia information that I thought I'd be interested in listening to. I've listened to all of them, and they were all very interesting. Some, well, some of them were not so useful, and some of them were very useful and very entertaining to listen. However, once you have done that, what the cool part is that it puts it here in the history. If you do one finger double tap here, it'll show you all the things it had read to you. So if you wanted to go back to it and read that again or to whatnot, go here. Go to the place that you had interest in. Maybe I want to hear that again or read it myself. Double tap that. And what that'll happen, it'll open up Wikipedia where it pulled the information from so you can be able to see it for yourself.
VoiceOver: Clear history. Button.
Thomas: And then we have the option to clear the history itself. The other thing to let you know, once it's been played, if you heard something in particular, like the least some information you just heard for yourself here, it's not going to repeat that. I love that. So essentially, if I were to sit here and open up each and every time into WikiTrip, there should be a new set of wiki trip information for it to read to you. So it really depends on the area, how dense the area is, if there's a lot here in the city or surrounding area to pull from. But in this case, there's tons of things here in the leaf summit. It will pull up the next item. So it will never repeat. You will never hear the same thing until you clear the history data.
VoiceOver: Feedback heading.
Thomas: Now you got the variety of different things you could expect in the settings. There's the feedback heading.
VoiceOver: Rate WikiTrip. Button. Share WikiTrip. Button. Email the maker. Button. Your feedback helps make WikiTrip better. Help. Heading.
Thomas: Get the help section.
VoiceOver: How to use. Button. Welcome screen. Button. Legal. Heading.
Thomas: And you get to the legal section. So that's pretty much it in the WikiTrip. Really, it's one of those apps you just pull out, hit the continue button, and just go. And that is a beautiful thing. There isn't much to it. I love that. Now, I am going to show you something else that you can do. So I'm going to go to the top right-hand corner.
VoiceOver: Done button.
Thomas: To my done button, double-tap that.
VoiceOver: Move 150 feet to discover more.
Thomas: Now let's go back to the right where we had the teardrop thing.
VoiceOver: Stop. Button. Gear shape. Button.
Thomas: And now let's go to the right here.
VoiceOver: My location. 106S W Donovan Road. Lee's Summit.
Thomas: So that is the location I am at this point doing my podcast. Now what's more importantly is what is available below this area.
VoiceOver: Lee's Summit. Missouri. Map. Unity Village.
Thomas: Is the map. Now... Kind of what's going on here, visually there is a map here. If you are in an area that contains lots of Wikipedia information, you want to kind of see what is available at the time that it pulls. So Unity Village is one of those things that it was going to read in a little bit here that you just heard. So any of these items that you hear, does have one of those information that it can read to you if you wanted to listen to it now. So in other words, if I were to double tap that, it'll take about 30 seconds to pull the information and start reading about the information without having to walk 150 feet or whatnot. So there are some limitations that you can do when you're sitting around. But again, like I said, it's really designed for you to be on the go.
VoiceOver: St. Lucas East Hospital. B&B Theaters. Target, Lee's Summit North High School.
Thomas: So, yes, all this information that you could double tap and get that information now. I assume this would change as I listen to them. I assume they would disappear. Actually, I'm not 100% sure, but I don't really use this. But that is something for you to explore for yourself. What I'm going to do now, I'm going to have it kind of show you some of the points of interest while we were on the road trip to Branson. to get some idea what other things you could possibly hear along the road. So, I'm going to have that read to you now.
WikiTrip (Ash): Baird Mountain, 1.4 miles south. Baird Mountain is a summit in Taney County in southern Missouri. The peak has an elevation of 1,234 feet, 376 meters. The peak lies just southeast of the Table Rock Lake Dam, above Missouri Route 265. Table Rock State Park lies just to the west. Baird Mountain is where the United States Army Corps of Engineers quarried the rock to make all the concrete for Table Rock Dam. The rock was transported off Baird Mountain with a one-mile-long conveyor belt to the site of the dam. Baird Mountain has the name of one Mr. Baird, a pioneer prospector. Titanic Museum, Branson, Missouri, 1.7 miles west. The Titanic Museum attraction is a museum located in Branson, Missouri, United States, on 76 Country Boulevard. It is one of two Titanic-themed museums founded by John Jocelyn, who headed a 1987 expedition to Titanic's final resting place. the other is located in pigeon forge tennessee the museum holds four hundred pre-discovery artifacts in twenty galleries guests step through the artificial iceberg into the museum and receive a passenger boarding ticket featuring the name of an actual titanic passenger or crew member and a brief bio during the tour guests learn the individual stories of several passengers the museum features a replica of the ship's first-class grand staircase in which souvenir photos can be taken at the end of the tour guests are told whether their ticket holders survived like the museum of pigeon forge the museum's main exterior visual feature is the partial mock-up of the original ocean liner the construction consists of the front half of the ship including its first two funnels In a 2017 episode of the Travel Channel series, Ghost Adventures, Zach Baggins and the crew investigated the museum due to claimed paranormal activities allegedly traced to actual relics from the shipwreck. Branson Scenic Railway, 0.3 miles south. The Branson Scenic Railway. reporting mark BSRX, is a heritage railroad located in Branson, Missouri. The Ozark Zephyr, Branson Scenic Railway's historic Zephyr train, departs from an old depot in downtown Branson and operates in the scenic Ozark Mountains for an approximate 40-mile, 64-kilometer round trip. As the underlying rail lines are owned by the Missouri and Northern Arkansas Railroad, MNA, and are still in use as an active railroad, MNA traffic determines whether a particular trip will operate northbound from Branson to Galena, Missouri, or southbound from Branson to the Barren Fork Trestle in Arkansas.
Thomas: All right, so that is some of the POIs that we had on the road. Quite interesting, isn't it? And I really like this because some of the information was really interesting. Now, of course, there's some things in here, it's like, you know, where in the world did it But it does a really good job about pulling the best of the best Wikipedia. Now, obviously, as I mentioned before, you can go back on that same route that you're on. So let's just say you take a bus ride every day to and fro to work and back. It's going to read the next set of Wikipedia because it will not repeat what you already have heard. And I'd love that because while we were down in Branson, there were a ton of things down there. I mean, tons. And I was able to listen to 30, 40 things in a very short amount of distance between the city and the place we were staying at. And it was always something new. So I really like that. Now, of course, that will depend on the area itself. Some will have lots of information. Some is not going to have so much information. So that is WikiTrip. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I hope it's something that you will be able to use in your near future for any road trips, bus trips, or just walking around. My name is Thomas Domville, also known as AnonyMouse. Until next time, bye-bye.
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