Wolfram Alpha Slashes iPhone App Price, Launches Mobile Site

The answer to that question is “yes.” Wolfram Alpha says its iPhone app is now available for $1.99, a huge drop from the $49.99 price when the app debuted last fall. It’s also offering refunds to users who paid the higher price.

“Our number-one priority as of today is to get Wolfram|Alpha in the hands of everyone,” says Wolfram Alpha’s Managing Director Barak Berkowitz. That’s a far cry from the company’s attitude when it announced the iPhone app:

“…looking at the other apps that are $50+, we think that we’re of at least comparable in utility and functionality, if not more. And, part of what the company is also doing is making a statement about the non-trivial nature of Wolfram Alpha’s capabilities.”

At the same time, Wolfram Alpha has launched a new, mobile-friendly version of its “computational knowledge engine” at https://m.wolframalpha.com. Last year, Wolfram Alpha briefly had a mobile site that functioned on the iPhone. This new site, the company says, will work on multiple smartphones and across 2G, 3G, and 4G networks.

Wolfram Alpha’s blog post also hints at more announcements to come in the near future.

There’s more discussion on Techmeme.