Rediscovering Instapaper
after publishing my /defaults page, i decided to look for a new read-later service because thatâs one of the few defaults that were missing from the list â and also from my daily workflow.
iâve since been testing safariâs reading list, quiche, matter, folio, and the og read-later app instapaper i deleted from my devices six years ago.
tiny review of matter & folio
both apps asked me on launch if i wanted to import from pocket; folio even representing itself as the âpocket replacementâ, built by pocketâs former head of product. both apps also have a discover section which i donât want to use. if i had to chose between matter and folio, iâd prefer matter. while, again, both apps are showing the websites with a simplified reading mode, matter looks and feels more polished, and folio weirdly removing all media. matter also has the ability to import rss feeds and forward email newsletters. the app is already a few years old while folio was launched with pocketâs shutdown.
tiny review of quiche & reading list
built by an indie dev from tokyo, âthe marie kondo of read-it-later appsâ quiche works a little different. as the app icon predicts, it only shows a single âpageâ (article/post) to act on. you can either read, archive, or delete it before you can proceed to the next one. nice little app but not exactly how i want to use a read-later app, as it always shows the website and not a simplified reading mode. bonus: no account required. appleâs reading list on the other hand not only doesnât require an account, but it also doesnât need a separate app since itâs built into safari. easy to use, but feels a little dull and doesnât always automatically start the reading mode, showing the website instead, just like quiche does by default. i rarely even remembered that appleâs reading list existed, so i never used it.
small review of instapaper
marco â now better known for the accidental tech podcast and his podcast app overcast â sold instapaper to betaworks in 2013, a company later acquired by pinterest. when euâs gdpr came into effect in 2018, pinterest instapaper couldnât comply with the regulations and shut down for more than two months. i remembered thatâs when i stopped using instapaper and read-later-services altogether and started piling up open tabs or messaging myself with the links rather than using a dedicated app. it worked â but it wasnât great.
in the past, instapaper has always been one of my favourite apps because it mostly does one job: save a page (and, of course, present a list with saved pages and display the text nicely by removing everything else). the app looks a little old by todayâs standards, especially on ios 26, but it still does a great job for saving and reading articles and posts with a distraction-free clean design. it offers features like page summaries, speed reading, and text-to-speech, but theyâre tucked away behind a button.
after logging in using my old account, it showed me a lot of unread articles and posts from 2018. iâd declared bankruptcy on those to start fresh. i realised i was missing the ability to save websites to a proper read-later app for years, i just didnât know.
instapaper quickly became my go-to app again.
hereâs the mood.camera post by craney, if youâre interested. great review (much better than my read-later app review), and also a great camera app i keep forgetting to use.