{"id":3195,"date":"2012-07-03T08:25:30","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T14:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/?p=3195"},"modified":"2012-07-03T08:29:40","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T14:29:40","slug":"i-dropped-safari-reading-list-and-moved-back-to-instapaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/?p=3195","title":{"rendered":"I dropped Safari Reading List and moved back to Instapaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

If you’ve ever looked at Safari’s new “Reading List” feature and wondered “is it good enough to replace Instapaper<\/a>?” or a similar read-it-later service don’t worry, I’ve tested it out for you. Four months ago I moved all my articles into Safari (my primary web browser) and stopped using the Instapaper applications to read on my iPad and iPhone. Spoiler alert: I almost complete stopped saving articles to be read and I stopped reading saved articles.<\/p>\n

Here are the big reasons I stopped using the Safari “Reading List”:<\/p>\n

1. No home screen presence<\/h2>\n

Without a nagging reminder to keep reading when I pick up my phone during idle time, I default to spending my time in “less useful” ways such as checking Twitter, checking email, or playing a game. Without a dedicated application icon, for me it was hard to remember there is a list of good articles waiting for me buried in Safari (two or three taps away).<\/p>\n

2. No API integration into apps (yet)<\/h2>\n

I find most of my long-form articles via Twitter and Reeder (RSS feeds). Both these applications have a dedicated button for sending a URL directly to Instapaper. There is no (currently) way to do this for the “Reading List” without taking two steps: open the link in Safari (which switches the currently open app) and then use the built-in Safari action to save to the Reading List (similar to ‘bookmarking’). This is slow and clumsy and led me to almost completely stop bookmarking articles to read later. Sometimes I would read it then and there just so I wouldn’t have to switch apps. Sometimes I would just skim the article and move on.<\/p>\n

(I can only presume future iOS versions will make this a simple action available to iOS apps.)<\/small><\/p>\n

3. No offline abilities<\/h2>\n

Instapaper does a great job turning an article into a simple, text-only version that will show up downloaded to my devices in the background. With Safari’s Reading List I need to be online to access the URL (tough luck if the URL goes offline temporarily or permanently) and then I need to use the ‘Reader’ tab to see the text-only version. Again, this seems like extra steps and clumsy. It’s close, though.<\/p>\n

(I am aware that iOS 6 will add “Offline Reading” support<\/a>, that’s why this is number three.)<\/small><\/p>\n

\n

Reading List has near parity to other read-it-later providers like Instapaper but it’s still a bit too fiddly to be useful. My guess is offline support will be good and a dedicated iOS “Save to Reading List” action is around the corner. I’ll try things out again and see if Instapaper drops off my home screen then. But, the point remains: without the nagging application on my home screen: I forget to read what I told myself I should.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’ve ever looked at Safari’s new “Reading List” feature and wondered “is it good enough to replace Instapaper?” or a similar read-it-later service don’t worry, I’ve tested it out for you. Four months ago I moved all my articles into Safari (my primary web browser) and stopped using the Instapaper applications to read on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","category-lifehack"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/empty-reading-list-full-instapaper.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3195"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4702,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195\/revisions\/4702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}