A smartphone app for using the Companion was researched in 2013. However, standard technology overtook this, with digital book pages now automatically shaping themselves to the screen size of all computers and phones. This fulfils the function of an ‘app’, without the restriction of having to have a strong wifi connection. Hence the direction that ‘app’ work has taken with the Companion is to provide a fully-hyperlinked 1900-item contents which can be scrolled and will take the viewer direct to the main-item page. This will be a subject-related way into finding all items and cross-references in the book. It will guide the reader to where to find all the references to such as ‘Seán O Riada’, or ‘set dance’, or ‘Paddy Canny’, and will link biographies to each other and to related instruments. For instance, such as individual flute players presently dispersed throughout the full 800 pages will be page-linked to the flute section, etc. It is expected that it will save an immense amount of time in searching and will be of great value in project-, essay- and lecture-notes compilation.

This detailed, fully-subject-indexed digital version will replace the present Kindle and ibooks versions later in 2015. It will have the capability of bringing the reader to all the 4000 or so individual article headings directly in the digital format. More information on this later.