Instapaper and Read it Later for webOS: Get Your Read On 14
It's a good app day here in Pre-land: Astraware has landed, Angry Birds will any minute now, and we have probably the most exciting homebrew app we've seen in a long time with Mode Switcher. If you're more of a reader than a gamer, chances are you have made it a habit of saving longer articles from the web to a service like Instapaper or Read it Later. If not, well, you really should, they're great services. Here are a couple apps that will make your downtime a bit more bearable:
- Spare Time comes to us from SemicolonApps and interfaces with Instapaper (unofficially) to get your unread articles down to your webOS phone
- Relego comes to us from the webosroundup hackathon and the bevy of great developers who took part in it. It interfaces with the Read it Later service for your offline reading pleasure and will have more features added soon.
For the newshounds among you who are looking for shorter bits, we still love us some Scoop here at PC HQ for how efficiently it burns though our massive Google Reader queue. Those of you with lighter RSS loads might want to check out NewsRoom, which is a fan favorite in our community
14 Comments
So which service is better? Instapaper or "Read it Later"?
We need an add to Instapaper browser patch and a working one for Read It Later .
They created a patch:
http://www.webosroundup.com/2010/08/first-wor-hackathon-a-success/
The patch actually works. It's the Relego app itself which is missing the required pieces. When I did the cross app work, the API was not completed, so it was never fully integrated. I did the integration work early Sunday morning, but I am unsure why there is a holdup in getting the updated Beta out. Will go hound some people, this is not cool :\
New version of Relego is out on the feeds and I can confirm that the patch now works.
I have also contatcted the developer of the Instapaper App about a patch and a few feature requests for his app.
James, thanx for your hard work
YES. I've been waiting for this since the day I bought my Pre Plus in March this of this year- there's no app I've been waiting for more than this one. The lack of an Instapaper app was more annoying than the lack of Google Voice, YouTube account support, and a decent Evernote app-I'd rather have an Instapaper app than... ok, you get the idea. Point is, if this Instapaper app cost $75 to buy I wouldn't have batted an eye- I'd fork over that much without blinking just to use Instapaper on my Pre (and not through the browser) To the developer of the Instapaper app: you've most important app that webOS didn't have. Thank you.
YES. I've been waiting for this since the day I bought my Pre Plus in March this of this year- there's no app I've been waiting for more than this one. The lack of an Instapaper app was more annoying than the lack of Google Voice, YouTube account support, and a decent Evernote app-I'd rather have an Instapaper app than... ok, you get the idea. Point is, if this Instapaper app cost $75 to buy I wouldn't have batted an eye- I'd fork over that much without blinking just to use Instapaper on my Pre (and not through the browser) To the developer of the Instapaper app: you've most important app that webOS didn't have. Thank you.
Angry Birds is here! Excited to finally check it out.
While these apps are great (and they really are) I can't believe how little attention is given to OFFLINE reading. As a NYC subway commuter, I want an app that downloads and stores full web pages for ready on the subway. Read It Later is a great idea - but how about Read It Offline?
Any other app suggestions for this need?
agreed - if one has a network connection, then there's the Google Reader mobile site... I believe that the non-free version of Feeds does some form of offline reading?
dear Scoop developer,
I've seen Scoop recommended a number of times. So why not make it available in the UK? Please?
@Seb_or_Sam - I'll let you know where you can send me $75 :)
@Trajadoja - I'm planning on offline mode, I like to put the most minimal marketable product out there first and iterate from there.
I also want to create a browser patch for Instapaper. The patch itself looks easy enough if anyone can help me out on the process of getting it in to preware please email me darrinholst at gmail dot com.
I read somewhere instapaper is for reading, read it later is for multimedia (pics, video, etc).
Therefore I'm interested in instapaper and Spare Time. Thank you! I can wait for the browser patch and offline reading just because I know they are coming.