Android
Ever more people use smartphones as a medium for their digital life. This is especially the case in emerging countries, which are targeted by Kiwix. We think Android will be the most important mobile platform in the next years, especially for the cheapest devices. Android is in addition, unlike the Apple AppStore, open to free software. Consequently, our next big step is to port Kiwix to Android. The Wikimedia Fundation is really interested in.
We focus on tablets because this seems to be there where Kiwix can help a lot, especially in India, but the software should also run on smartphones and we will do our best in that way.
Technology
We have tried first to use the Mozilla Gecko Platform we already use for the desktop app. but we failed. The framework is not adapted to do that and without support this was impossible.
We want now to use the Cordova-Qt framework and we have built a proof-of-concept. The WMF has sponsorised us two tablets to make the development and we think to be able to release a first version of kiwix-mobile during the autumn.
We have the code of a proof of concept on Github
Timeline
We plan to release a first version of Kiwix-mobile for Android in March 2013.