![]() The problem is this: the internet overflows with amazing things to read, but a computer is not a great device for reading. It was a terrible solution to the problem that read-it-later services finally solved on the iPhone and later the iPad. I would actually copy and paste articles from the internet into text documents, and then use various apps to read those text documents. I started buying my first PDAs and smartphones back in the early 2000s, and I immediately began trying to hack together a way to read long-form articles on these mobile devices. Each app has its own strengths and weaknesses, and Pocket has some features that could make it the ideal app for some use cases, but Instapaper is our favorite app for actually reading the best writing on the web … later. In the read-it-later space, the two dominant players have long been Instapaper and Pocket. These rivalries are great for consumers because each application is forced to hone its own approach and polish its unique features. So Readability and Instapaper are what I can use.The world of software occasionally produces fruitful rivalries between applications that try to solve the same problem with different approaches: Omnifocus vs. However, both options only allow the page to be added to the Pocket queue, there’s no way to just get a Pocket view display of the page. Pocket too gives bookmarklets and tools for publishers. Unfortunately, there’s no similar URL to simply show the page in an Instapaper view without adding to queue. For publishers Instapaper gives an URL that will add the page to the reader’s Instapaper queue. Instapaper too gives bookmarklets for readers – the “Instapaper Text” bookmarklet one is what I am interested in. I don’t want a block of buttons – in my case, all I want is to offer users a link they can click to get the page in a Readability view.įor readers Readability offers the bookmarklets I mentioned earlier. I wrapped the “Read Now” bookmarklet as a link for my purpose (as I’ll show in a bit). What I don’t like about the embed code, though, is that it pulls in JavaScript from their website and adds a block of buttons to my posts. It also lets you add the page to Readability, print it, send to Kindle, or email – useful stuff. ![]() This is good in that it allows one to read the page in a Readability view without adding to Readability (similar to what I did yesterday using the bookmarklet). ![]() ![]() I prefer Readability over Pocket as its iOS app is terrific, but Readability’s Android app sucks (poor UI, syncing issues, doesn’t keep track of my last read location) and so I use Pocket rather than Readability.įor publishers Readability offers an embed code. For some posts that Instapaper has difficulty rendering (mostly posts with a lot of code, pictures) I use Pocket. ![]() Sure, it doesn’t have any ads or widgets, and the posts appear clean on a browser as my emphasis is on the text/ code, but that doesn’t translate well to a mobile device as the fonts are small and a bit of zooming and scrolling is required to hide the left sidebar and other bits.Įventually I read the post using a Readability bookmarklet I had on the mobile browser so that got me thinking I must add quick links to do this for each post so any visitors can take advantage of the same. That made me realize my blog doesn’t have a mobile friendly view. Yesterday I went back and read one of my older posts from my tablet. ![]()
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