Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Instapaper: Am I Missing Something?

I

itzcoolz

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 6, 2010
106
0
I've heard people rave about Instapaper over and over again, but I don't seem to see what's so useful about it.

Can someone give me real-world situations that people use Instapaper for, if they have the iPad 3G? I'm not at all trying to disparage the app; I really just want to make sure I am not missing anything, because I've seen many people consider it a must-have app.
 
the way I use it is...

1) when im in the office or on my desktop at home , if theres a something I find interesting I want to read or save for reference later or something I want to remember to look at, Ill hit my save book mark to instaper tab and it instantly saves it to my account. i grab my Ipad or iphone and i'm out the door, and ive got instant access to those articles, in a stripped down text format so that its quick to download. If I know I wont have a connection like say on the train I will hit the tab in the application to save offline before heading out and in a few steps I have reading content to read online. I personally like this over some other solutions cause its simple, quick and snappy to use.

My most recent use of the app was when the miss's and I were browsing for a recipe on the desktop, once we found what we wanted, hit the save tab popped downstairs to the kitchen and opened the application on the ipad and had the recipe there in front of us. quick and painless.


Applications such as evernote could achieve the same but the experience is not as streamlined.
 
In addition to doing what kaelell described, I also favor apps that have instapaper and readitlater support (I tend to use readitlater more, but it's the same concept). So my normal workflow is to go through Twitter, reeder, byline, etc. And save everything I want to read to readitlater, then read everything at once. Readitlater also has a bookmarklet that allows you to click to save all links on a page in safari to readitlater, which is very useful for articles like "25 must have apps for the iPad" and similar things. I assume there's a similar bookmarklet for instapaper, but I don't know for sure.
 
I hadn't thought about using it for recipes--what a great idea! Sure beats emailing the recipe URL to myself.

Instapaper is fantastic if you're a (compulsive?) reader. I use it all the time to save longer articles that I happen across when I'm browsing, so that I always have a collection of shorter stuff available to read for when I have a little time but don't want to read whatever book I'm currently in the middle of. (One great place to pick up interesting articles is longform.org, btw, which has a button to "read it later" for every article posted.)

It's also excellent for collecting research, especially if you take advantage of the folders capability. (You'd need the paid version of the app to use the folders, though you could alternately just access them through the Instapaper website.) And because it uses the cloud, your research is available from any device with a web browser and 'net access.

I heart Instapaper--I keep it in my dock.
 
Having read Marco Arment's blog (the author), it also appears that his philosophy is to strip down the content to its bare essentials, not having to deal with graphics, links, etc, in the browser that may detract from the reading experience. It seems the way he uses it is to mark long articles he doesn't have the time to read or concentrate on upon first discovery, them get to them when he has an undisturbed block of time.
 
itzcoolz said:
I've heard people rave about Instapaper over and over again, but I don't seem to see what's so useful about it.

Can someone give me real-world situations that people use Instapaper for, if they have the iPad 3G? I'm not at all trying to disparage the app; I really just want to make sure I am not missing anything, because I've seen many people consider it a must-have app.
Click to expand...

Throughout the day, you come across a few articles that you want to read, however you don't necessarily want to read them right now. Maybe you are out and about on your phone, maybe you are saving articles from Tweetie (well, Twitter for iPhone). Also, the formatting on many websites may not necessarily be the most pleasant way to read something. So you save all the articles or posts with the Instapaper bookmarklet (or the built-in Instapaper integration in your Twitter app), and at the end of the day (or whenever else you want to read the stuff, on a train, on a plane, at a coffeeshop, etc.), you can read all of this material in a very pleasant interface. You can also change the font size, use a light or dark interface, change the font type, use the brightness dimmer, select text to share, etc.

Honestly, its the best thing for the iPad. I can't imagine being without it.
 
thanks! the off-line reading and twitter integration sound great. i do hate reading links when reading my twitter feed.

will instapaper automatically cache all the pages of an article? (say, an 8 page New York Times article?)

also, which apps offer instapaper integration? esp twitter apps?
 
itzcoolz said:
will instapaper automatically cache all the pages of an article? (say, an 8 page New York Times article?)

also, which apps offer instapaper integration? esp twitter apps?
Click to expand...

Make sure you are viewing in "single page" when you save it to Instapaper. If there is no "single page" view, then perhaps there is a "printable format" view that will work. The New York Times uses a "single page" option for their larger articles.

The caching is done when you load the app (and it refreshes), not when you save the link. When you save the link, it just logs the link and will pull it up when you bring up the app and refresh.
(So, for example, if you had a Wi-Fi only iPad, and you wanted to save a bunch of articles to read on a flight, you would need to first save all the links via your preferred method, and then make sure you open the app and everything loads in fine. Once the articles are there, you can read them offline.)

At the bottom of this page is many of the apps that have Instapaper integration built-in: http://www.instapaper.com/extras
For the iPhone, nothing beats Tweetie (which is now just Twitter for iPhone, and is free)
I'm using NewsRack for iPad (RSS) and it offers good Instapaper saving access.
 
Why buy instapaper pro (besides maybe to support the developer) when the website looks so good on the iPad and I am always connected?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back