When Wolfram Alpha launched back in May 2009, it promised to deliver accurate answers to users' questions; an approach different to that of Google's search engine, as results from queries in this form can often be a little on the random side.

And Wolfram Alpha, for the most part, has delivered on this promise, as it is an excellent resource for all sorts of tricky questions.

Wolfram Alpha

Format

iPhone, iPod touch

Price

£1.19

Where

iTunes

The app has been around since October 2009, and along with numerous updates the biggest thing to change is the price - as it cost a whopping $49 on launch day. The most recent update was in August 2010, which brought improvements such as support for iOS 4 multitasking and image quality optimisation.

The app itself is still excellent, although massively cheaper at £1.19.

In use and the app will ask to use your location to aid with particular queries. whereon you'll be faced with a search bar and num-pad; then it's just a case of asking whatever you like.

You still have to be careful with spelling (you have to be able to), but the results received on our play were accurate and well presented. In our quick test we searched for local weather, we were presented with huge amounts of info; including temperature, forecast, cloud cover and history for the month since 1975 - all very comprehensive.

There's a getting started page and various categories available in order to help with how to ask specific questions; categories include physics, maths, astronomy, engineering, life sciences as well as pretty much any discipline you can think of.

Needless to say at £1.19 it's a snip.