I think marco is totally right that this can only help instapaper in the long run. Let me tell you a story from my own experience:<p>My partner and I created an iPad game for cats. We wanted to get some extra marketing boost so we contacted friskies (purina). In Nov (2010) I exchanged a few emails, and talked to them on the phone about our game. I sent them a video and they told us they loved the idea and they would get back to us. Then one day, silence. We didn't hear anything for months.<p>Then a couple weeks ago they released the Friskies "Games for Cats" which are suspiciously similar to our game. The blogosphere exploded. "Friskies releases creative iPad game for cats" "Friskies is oh so clever etc."<p>We were pissed. But sales improved. A lot.<p>I tried to track their rankings so I searched for them on the AppStore. Hmm, thats odd. I couldn't find them. It turns out /they didn't make native apps/ they were "simply" HTML5 pages on their website that you open in browser [1].<p>So what was/is happening is people see "Friskies iPad Game for Cats" they grab their iPad and search for "game for cats" on the AppStore and then they find our game and we profit.<p>Also, most people who have cats and iPads don't even think to look for a game for their cat. So by Friskies putting marketing into this they actually increase the size of the market (to be honest, I hope they run a TV commercial advertising their "ipad game for cats").<p>Moral #1 of the story is: BigCo might steal your idea, but they will likely mess it up and it can end up helping you.<p>Moral #2: high water raises all the boats<p>[1] I realized HTML5 is a "real" app, but most normals don't yet view it that way. They expect to find apps in an app store.<p>UPDATE: formatting
I knew the guy who made the original faux-MMS app. When Apple added MMS to iPhone, his app died swiftly.<p>I also knew the guy who made the original, best voice recorder app too. He made a mint, but then Apple made it a native app, and his app pretty much died too.<p>Never underestimate the potential of the platform-owner to take what he wants from your business.
Thanks to Safari's reading list, I'll likely stop using the Instapaper bookmarklet on my iPad. But the most common use case I have for Intapaper is when I see an article on my laptop in Chrome and want to read it later on my Kindle 3. So I expect I'll be using Instapaper for a while longer.<p>This is a generalizable pattern for survival for all the other apps Apple "killed" today - you can still compete for any users that don't live 100% in the Apple ecosystem.
I'm a happy (paid) Instapaper user and hope it prospers, but I'm old enough to remember what happened when IBM brought out its original PC back in the early 1980s.<p>Apple claimed that IBM's entry into the space was a <i>good</i> thing because it validated the concept of personal computing, of which Apple had been a pioneer.<p>Then IBM proceeded to eat Apple's lunch, even though (in the opinion of many) Apple had the superior machine.<p><i>(Edited slightly for style.)</i>
Except that foreseeably, there will be no way for Instapaper to have the same intuitive interface that Reading List benefits from. The only possible future for Instapaper is as a functionally superior app with a inferior interface. There's no way that Apple's going to lend the same degree of control over the functionality of Safari to any third-party app developer.<p>A pessimistic response is logical and probably the only rational response. There's simply no way to compete with Apple's Reading List because Apple's made it that way.<p>Instapaper, which is really a wonderful app has this weird workflow for use: Install the app, and to install the bookmarklet (some rudimentary Safari integration), you have to go to a page, create a empty bookmark, go back and edit the bookmark with a copied-and-pasted javascript: url. I'm sure Marco has tried his best to improve the interface, but Apple's restrictions on the platform forbids it.
Instapaper's killer-est feature for me is "Send to my kindle." I don't think Apple could get away with that anytime in the near future without some legal troubles with Amazon. Features like that are things that will continue to make apps like instapaper better than the baked in stuff. And it takes Marco a lot less turnaround time to deliver them than it would somebody like Apple, so I think there's still a lot of room to grow there.
There seemed to have been a lot of pessimism regarding Apple announcements that seem similar other offerings like Dropbox & Reminder apps.<p>Marco has the best response.<p>He’s rightly convinced of the superiority of his product. Apple is chasing <i>him</i> at his own game. When people realize that there’s a whole untapped market for content reading services he’ll definitely stay the upscale, market leader in the field.
Take this with a grain of salt. Of course he is going to say it only helps him. That is just entrepreneurship 101. You must always be positive and incredibly self assured in public. Executives always assure you that their business is going great and everything is good news up to the moment they file the bankruptcy papers (and in the case of chapter 11 bankruptcies even for some time afterwards).<p>But I doubt he is that optimistic on the inside. This is for reasons other people have already properly identified in this discussion (e.g., the Apple product will always have the better integration).<p>So Apple just went out and ate this guy's lunch. That's pretty much it. You may argue it is ok, you may argue they have a right to do that, but let's not pretend it did not happen.
I get the impression that Marco is putting a brave face on what is an awful realization.<p>I use the 'reading list' functionality of Instapaper. I have only used the social and editorial aspects to see what they were about and nothing more.
Will Apple's solution be limited to Safari? I would think Marco's customers are rather a tech-savvy crowd who wouldn't tie themselves to just one particular browser.<p>I use Instapaper for the multi-browser support (mostly in Firefox), but also for the Kindle support, both for reading in Kindle Webkit browser and as downloads.<p>I think Marco has a big chance to catch the long tail of read-later'ing.<p>If you look at desktop Safari's Reader Mode… It is a fantastic feature but I don't think I ever heard of anyone I know using it.<p>It should've been implemented in iOS Safari long time ago, btw, this is where it's been missing.
Pretty amazing to see Apple building best elements of Dropbox, Kik, Instapaper and more directly into iOS.<p>Quite the emotional rollercoaster for Marco - <a href="http://www.betabeat.com/2011/06/06/apple-killed-instapaper-reading-list-marco-arment-2011-06-06/" rel="nofollow">http://www.betabeat.com/2011/06/06/apple-killed-instapaper-r...</a>
Marco is in a tough position because he depends on revenue from <i>only</i> one app available on <i>only</i> iOS.<p>It's a tough break, I'm sure he didn't expect anything like this before the Lion preview. I hope his business can survive.
The competitive advantage for Instapaper is the ability to iterate quickly. If Apple delivers a growing band of people interested in reading the web later, Instapaper is better positioned to find out what tweaks and features will work best for them by risking changes to the core product.
The vast majority of the articles I add to Instapaper, I add from Firefox on my desktop at work. And virtually <i>all</i> the articles I read in Instapaper, I read when I'm off-network completely (I have an iPod touch). I don't think Marco has much to worry about yet.
I cant comment whether this will help InstaPaper or not, having never tried the product, but i love the way that the owner of instapaper rises to the challenge. It inspires me greatly for if and when my business may face similar challenges.
So it seems that Reading List does not support offline reading. For me that is the main reason to use Instapaper. I save a lot of stuff and then read it when I am for example on a flight without Wi-Fi.<p>There is your added value.
Instapaper will be ok, it has superior features not in Reading List. Same for Camera+ even though Apple added enhancement to native Camera app. Sparrow vs Mail app. iOS market is big enough for Marco to happily survive.
If Reading List gains a lot of ground, it may be time for Marco to think about developing an Android app. I'm a happy paid Instapaper user though, and continue to pay the subscription fee to support the service.