It's great to see a one man show like Instapaper doing so well. His space is becoming more crowded yet Marco's focus and drive means Instapaper keeps delivering more and more value. The changes in 4.0 look great.<p>Kudos Marco. You're an inspiration to solo founders (and anyone) looking to start something online. P.s. check out Marco's show with Dan Benjamin, Build and Analyze. I've been listening while I walk to work. It's interesting and insightful.
This is a brilliant example showing what great visual design and typography can do for an app. I never liked using Instapaper because I thought it looked so ugly. Now it's on par with the likes of Reeder and Twitter and I'm much more likely to use it.<p>I'm not sure how many people think like me but I just can't stand using software I think is ugly. It's no fun for me.<p>(That said, I think the actual user experience has also improved – which is equally as important.)
tl;dr Instapaper is great for iOS. A Kindle + Readability's Send to Kindle bookmarklet is an excellent alternative.<p>I was an avid Instapaper user on my iPod Touch until I got an Android phone. Marco has publicly stated his reluctance to support Android, and the third party apps for instapaper were all pretty pathetic. So I switched to Read it Later for a while.<p>Until I got a Kindle, which changed the game for me. Reading on the Kindle is so much a better experience than on another glowing screen that I don't even bother to try to read long form on the phone anymore.<p>I went back to Instapaper for a while, using a Windows app called Wordcycler to sync, but now use Readability's Send to Kindle bookmarklet. It cuts out the syncing part (the Kindle just downloads content automatically when it has an internet connection), and I've found that it retains author and publication data more reliably.
The bad news: a change in how iOS manages files in version 5 means Instapaper's ability to store articles for you to read offline has reached something of a limit. If you get low on space iOS will now delete Instapaper's copies of articles:<p><a href="http://www.marco.org/2011/10/13/ios5-caches-cleaning" rel="nofollow">http://www.marco.org/2011/10/13/ios5-caches-cleaning</a><p>This is less of a problem if you are online all the time as Instapaper will redownload them, but it still kinda sucks.
The way this version handles footnotes[1] looks absolutely outstanding. More e-reading software should have a pop-over like this. I'd pay way more than $5 to get this feature on my Kindle.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.marco.org/media/2011/10/ip4-footnote.png" rel="nofollow">http://www.marco.org/media/2011/10/ip4-footnote.png</a><p>Also, a footnote of my own on the search subscription: Marco's talked a bit on his podcast about people wanting to subscribe to Instapaper via in-app purcase rather than through PayPal. However, Apple won't let you have an in-app purchase that doesn't add any functionality. Putting 2 and 2 together gives you a "search subscription" that is identical to a normal Instapaper subscription.
I've got a question for my fellow long-form-reading HNers.<p>I check my phone for quick hits of information, but I hate reading long-form articles on it. Do you guys know of any "Send to Kindle" apps or bookmarklets for iPhone/iOS?<p>I know, I know: this is a hell of a first-world problem, but I'd like to read on glowing screens as little as possible.
Do you still have to fetch the full page view before sending to Instapaper? That's the one thing that annoys me about this app/service. Readability does it all for you. I hate getting to the end of a piece in Instapaper and realizing there are more pages, but they weren't downloaded.
Great update Marco! Did you work with a (graphic/interaction) designer on this update or did you do it all and maybe threw in some stock icons along the way?
This is great, looking forward to installing it. However looking at the screenshots I can't help but wonder if something other than an ellipsis would be better for indicating footnotes, especially now the voice dictation in iOS has commandeered it.
I've switched to Spool:<p><a href="https://getspool.com/" rel="nofollow">https://getspool.com/</a><p>Both text and video. First-class Android and iPhone support. Alas, no iPad support, but I don't use that much anymore.
Seeing those images side-by-side, the matte black with simple icons on the iPad looks clean and appealing and the glossy beveled borders on the iPhone look a bit garish. Also the type for the iPad interface is much more pleasing.<p>I don't think I would have noticed if they images weren't right next to each other.
While I love Instapaper for bringing me back to reading long-form articles, I personally moved to Readability a while back. It's $5 (minimum)/month, but it has a lot more polish, and I actually prefer the mobile app to Instapaper's iOS ones - it's nice knowing if I decide to leave the iOS ecosystem, I'll still have my articles, while Marco has refused to make official Instapaper clients for other mobile OS's (understandable, as he's only one man). I also like a handful of features in Readability's desktop web app that Instapaper lacks - scroll tracking, more options for how it looks, etc.<p>However, if I get an iPad, I may move back just for Instapaper's iPad app. Looks beautiful.
I kinda feel like I'm stuck using Instapaper regardless of how good it is. I use the official Twitter iOS app, which only has Instapaper or Read It Later support, meaning there's no way I can fully jump to the likes of Spool if I wanted to.
Do this mean I can no longer move articles to the archive with one click?<p>It may sound a little trivial but I tend to remove the articles when I have read them and it gets annoying when I have to remove 15 (I tend to add a lot of articles).
Of course, it looks beautiful, and I really want it.
Is there any solution for Android? I've messed with some of the 3rd party apps but I haven't had any success.