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Popular app Instapaper, designed to allow users to save notable news articles to read at a later time, has been acquired by Pinterest. Created by Marco Arment in 2008, Instapaper was one of the first apps that implemented read-it-later functionality, and it was certainly one of the most widely used and well-known apps in the genre.

Instapaper, available on iOS, Android, Kindle, and the web, was first sold to Betaworks in 2013 and now it belongs to Pinterest. Pinterest plans to use Instapaper to encourage Pinterest users to save more articles to the site, a feature that's existed for several years but isn't often used, and some of Instapaper's search functionality will be integrated into Pinterest. In a blog post, Instapaper said the acquisition would also give it the resources to grow its core mission -- "allowing our users to discover, save, and experience interesting web content."
Instapaper provides a compelling source for news-based content, and we're excited to take those learnings to Pinterest's discovery products. We'll also be experimenting with using our parsing technology for certain Rich Pin types.
Instapaper will continue to operate as a standalone app and service, and no changes are expected for end users. The company will, however, be ending development on Instaparser on November 1, 2016.

Article Link: Pinterest Acquires Read-It-Later App Instapaper
 

SandboxGeneral

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Sep 8, 2010
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Instapaper will continue to operate as a standalone app and service, and no changes are expected for end users. The company will, however, be ending development on Instaparser on November 1, 2016
I love Instapaper and have been using it daily since it came out years ago. I sure hope they don't make any major forklift changes to it because I really like the way it is right now.
 

SandboxGeneral

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Sep 8, 2010
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Pinterest is garbage. And Instapaper is increasingly irrelevant with apps like Pocket and the built-in Apple News app.
I've recently started using Apple news more and like it, though I still send articles from it to Instapaper. Having never used or seen Pocket before, how is it better than Instapaper?
 

unobtainium

macrumors 68030
Mar 27, 2011
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I've recently started using Apple news more and like it, though I still send articles from it to Instapaper. Having never used or seen Pocket before, how is it better than Instapaper?
In my experience Pocket handles multimedia (images, video) better, which is important for reading stuff from the web. I also like Pocket's discovery features. Tbh though, I haven't looked at recent updates to Instapaper. Maybe they caught up.
 

SandboxGeneral

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Sep 8, 2010
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In my experience Pocket handles multimedia (images, video) better, which is important for reading stuff from the web. I also like Pocket's discovery features. Tbh though, I haven't looked at recent updates to Instapaper. Maybe they caught up.
I've stayed up with Instapaper since the beginning and overall its still about the same. They made more improvements under-the-hood over the years than they have big features, so its still about the same. The media handling is better these days and I usually don't have any problems with videos or photos.

I'll still give Pocket a look later today when I get home to see if I'm missing out on anything. Thanks!
 

ginkobiloba

macrumors 6502a
Jul 2, 2007
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I've actually moved from Pocket to Insta for one main feature that's unique to them : Highlights. I even pay an extra 20$ a year just for that.
 

SandboxGeneral

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Sep 8, 2010
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If Apple News had a dark mode for reading at night, I'd save articles to it. Until it does, I'll send things from AN to Instapaper.
I would love a dark mode for Apple News too. Its usually late at night or early in the morning when I like to read some news or articles and the bright white from Apple News can be blinding at times.
 

iMember

macrumors 6502
Mar 19, 2014
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Apple should acquire both! not because they needed..but because they can!

Apple will say: how much?
them: around $37 million but we can..
Apple: here's $50 million
 

SandboxGeneral

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Sep 8, 2010
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Okay, so I just installed Pocket and created an account. I haven't played with it yet, been like 4 minutes now, and I looked at the in-app purchase options for premium and holy wow! $5 per month or $45 per year - ongoing for the premium! Yikes.

Since I paid the $12 or whatever it was many years ago for the Instapaper premium, I was grandfathered in under their new pricing model and do not have to pay ongoing costs with it.

I really cannot see myself going with the premium version of Pocket at this point, not at those prices which are ongoing.
 
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iMember

macrumors 6502
Mar 19, 2014
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I would love a dark mode for Apple News too. Its usually late at night or early in the morning when I like to read some news or articles and the bright white from Apple News can be blinding at times.
You can't expect Apple to do all the things at once..do you? Security first, Apple it's waiting until it's done right!
 

thisisnotmyname

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Oct 22, 2014
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I actively avoid pinterest links now due to the fact that I can't view anyone's pinterest pins without logging in. I have a pinterest account but I just don't like that level of insistence to track behavior. I'll log in to pin things myself but I should be able to scan a list of existing pins without providing my credentials. Insta-paper has a different use case but given the behavior of pinterest I'm not optimistic for their future.
 

japanime

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Feb 27, 2006
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I purchased Instapaper Pro and was a very satisfied customer — at first. Then in 2011, Marco Arment made text search an add-on subscription. So much for the "Pro" version being full-featured. Then he sold Instagram to betaworks, and the Pro version disappeared completely in favor of a subscription-based model.

I don't mind paying for good apps. But I won't support developers who try to pull off the old bait-and-switch.
 

Night Spring

macrumors G5
Jul 17, 2008
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I purchased Instapaper Pro and was a very satisfied customer — at first. Then in 2011, Marco Arment made text search an add-on subscription. So much for the "Pro" version being full-featured. Then he sold Instagram to betaworks, and the Pro version disappeared completely in favor of a subscription-based model.

I don't mind paying for good apps. But I won't support developers who try to pull off the old bait-and-switch.

My experience is rather different. I paid Marco once -- for a few months subscription, I believe, and didn't renew. For some reason, search kept working even after my subscription expired, and it is still working to this day, and I also seem to have all the full features of the current Instapaper, even though I'm not paying any subscription. I thought this was because when they switched to the subscription model, they grandfathered everyone who purchased Instapaper Pro, and somehow they had me listed as a Pro purchaser.
 

CarpalMac

macrumors 68000
Nov 19, 2012
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Great, more Google search results leading to unviewable Pinterest content. I really wish Google would fix their algorithms to block sites like Pinterest from gaining top search results spots from shared, non-original content. More obnoxious than links to articles behind a paywall.
Sorry to be a bit cliche but this x1,000,000

I use google image searches a LOT and it frustrates the hell out of me when to leads me to Pinterest. I years ago created an account and got spammed to hell so deleted it. I put Pinterest in the same category as IBTimes, pure clickbait.
 

japanime

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Feb 27, 2006
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My experience is rather different. I paid Marco once -- for a few months subscription, I believe, and didn't renew. For some reason, search kept working even after my subscription expired, and it is still working to this day, and I also seem to have all the full features of the current Instapaper, even though I'm not paying any subscription. I thought this was because when they switched to the subscription model, they grandfathered everyone who purchased Instapaper Pro, and somehow they had me listed as a Pro purchaser.
It was probably just a system glitch, but I'm glad that it worked in your favor (and hopefully in others' favor as well).

My experience dealing with betaworks was disappointing. I asked them whether original Pro customers would be grandfathered in to the new subscription model without having to pay. They told me nope, but offered me a two-month "free" trial for being a "valued Pro customer," after which I could subscribe if I liked the service. I declined.
 
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