Instapaper – Review

Our rating:

By: Marco Arment

Version #: 1.0

Date Released: 2008-07-11

Developer:

Price: 0.00

User Rating:

Loading...

Since the release of iPhone 2.0 I have become a big fan of NetNewsWire’s resident application. I find that it works great on my iPhone and iPod Touch and, as a result, it has become unusual for me to read my RSS feeds on anything but those devices. The fact that it keeps everything in sync via NewsGator is an added bonus since I still need to use my computer to access those articles I have clipped. (It is a big limitation that I hope disappears with a future update to the app.)

Despite the fact that I have growing number of feeds I track, however I still spend a fair bit of time on sites that are not (yet) part of my RSS collection. For those sites I have begun using Instapaper and I highly recommend it.

Instapaper has two components to it- an iPhone/Touch app and a bookmark utility that is available for free from Instapaper.com. Once you set up an account and add the bookmarker to your browser (I find Firefox works best). It works on both PC and Mac. After that any time you come to a webpage you want to read later you just click the button- conveniently called "Read Later". The screen will briefly flash and a notification "Saved" will appear. (If you have previously saved that page it will say "Updated".) That’s where the fun begins. Once that has been done and you fire up Instapaper, the app will sync with Instapaper’s server and that page will show up on your device.

Why do his when the Safari browser renders pages so nicely? Two reasons.

First- it allows you to read saved pages offline.

This is useful on an iPhone and VERY important on a Touch since the latter does not have a GSM radio.

Unfortunately some sites (I have run into many) do not permit standard servers (including Instapaper) to access their content. For example if a site requires a login, Instapaper cannot download the content. (The first example I ran into of this was the New York Times. Fortunately the times has its own free app available for reading content offline on an iPhone or iPod Touch.) If/When you run into such a site, Instapaper will still save a link to it and send it to your iPhone/Touch. When you try to open it Instapaper will offer to open it in mobile Safari. It does, however mean that a data connection is required and the easy to read text formatting is not available.

Second- the pages saved to Instapaper come through to the handheld in a text format that, from a reading perspective, is the nicest experience I have had on an iPhone or Touch.

The app removes flash content (currently useless on the device anyway), Javascripts, and blog comments. Moreover, it compresses images which helps save space and speed download times. Furthermore, it uses fonts and formatting that ensures maximum readability, as well as removing the need to zoom or horizontally pan. Finally, it optimizes the pages in such a way  that if you turn the device from portrait to landscape the text reformats to fill the (now wider) screen with larger text that is even easier to read. Quite frankly,

The current version was recently renamed Instapaper Free since  a deluxe version with more features will likely be available for purchase at some future date.

Quick Take

Value: Exceptionally high
Would I Buy Again: The free version has a permanent place on my devices. Depending on the added features I may well buy the pro version.
Learning Curve: Low
Who is it for: Anyone who visits numerous webpages and wants access to them from their iPhone or iPod Touch
What I like: Works well, allows me to take most content offline, renders pages in an incredibly easy-to-read manner.
What I Don’t:Some key websites will not allow you to use Instapaper

Final Statement: If you read on the web and make use of RSS feeds this should be an added part of your toolkit.