“Save for later” apps – apps like Instapaper that capture and cleanly format text articles for later consumption – are essential to my workflow. I rely on them to read long form content for my job, for blog posts and just for fun almost every night. But last week there was a serious shakeup: Popular app Read It Later reinvented itself as Pocket. It aims to be a save later service for not just text articles but almost anything online, from videos to photos and mp3 clips. That’s ambitious, something I had to investigate further.
Thirty articles and a few days later with the app I’m hooked. Overall Pocket is an awesome app, albeit with a few rough patches. It’s a tool I’d recommend to almost anyone, especially to iOS newbies given its straightforward setup process. There are several things that Pocket does especially well:
A consistent experience across multiple platforms. A lot of other media apps provide a smart UI on both the iPhone and iPad. Yet it’s rare to see an app ecosystem work so consistently on the iPhone, iPad and the desktop. With Pocket there’s a uniform, drop down based navigation on each device that’s easy to use. Its grid based, Flipboard-esque layout works especially well on the iPad or web while remaining fully usable on the iPhone.
Visual design. Many apps dedicated to browsing or media discovery have a color scheme and layout that is heavy on contrast or overly skeuomorphic. It makes a strong first impression but can get a bit boring or distracting when you’re trying to browse through or read individual articles. Pocket avoids these problems by leveraging a light palette with subtle contrast and few gradients to maximize readability. This minimalist design looks borderline “non-native” to the iOS platform, but I think for Pocket it’s a smart move. The look feels fresh and distinctive, much in the same way the Twitter client Tweetbot distinguished itself visually with a chrome, metal and gradient heavy design.
App integration. This is where a lot of competition falls short; you can have an awesome reading experience, but that becomes meaningless if you can’t move articles in and out of your save for later app easily. That’s not a problem with Pocket. It uses the same API as Read it Later which has been around for years and consequently there’s huge app support.
Video integration. I’m a big film nerd, so naturally I capture a lot of clips, video essays and trailers. Pocket has native support for Youtube and Vimeo, which gives each saved video article a proper headline and thumbnail. With two taps I’m watching a video full screen on my device. Instapaper, Readability and other choices either can’t play video at all or add a lot of cruft around the video itself.
The setup process. Pocket goes out its way to make capturing content as easy as possible. On iOS devices it identifies other apps that are Pocket compatible and provides custom setup instructions for each. To add a web bookmarklet, an essential capture tool, its step by step tutorial is best in class.
Nevertheless Pocket isn’t perfect. The app’s filter for switching between text articles, images and videos is occasionally inaccurate; usually the articles view accidentally pulls in a few videos or vice versa. Also Pocket’s web site needs a bit for work on typography; its body text color is too light and it doesn’t offer the same font choices available on its iOS app. Finally while the default sans serif and serif options look nice, text customization (i.e. font choice, line height, margin size) lags behind what Instapaper provides.
So is Pocket better than Instapaper? Yes and no. If you trend toward content that’s graphic heavy, video based, or anything that strays from pure text, Pocket should be your first choice. For die hard readers of news articles, blog posts and other text-heavy content, stick with Instapaper.
I plan on using both: Instapaper for reading, Pocket for videos and everything else. I’ll detail in a future post exactly how I integrate both apps into my daily workflow.
I’m not a huge iOS gamer, but when I do I gravitate toward word games. One of the best in the genre is David Gage’s SpellTower. It’s fun, simple, and has four game variations to keep things interesting. Works well on both iPhone and iPad, and there’s Bluetooth connectivity included for competitive multiplayer.
It’s on sale right now for a buck only for the next 24 hours, so go get it (Cool web site as well.)
What qualifies as a ‘great’ iOS app over the long run? For me it’s simple: It saves me time. It doesn’t have to have a great icon, a great design, sexy graphics or get lots of praise from tech bloggers. If any of those traits add to saving time (and they often do) great, but time and efficiency outweigh everything else.
I use Drafts because its simplicity and raw speed saves me a few seconds every time I have to capture an idea or reminder. IA Writer’s clean typography and lack of customization focuses my mind for longer form writing. Marsedit’s quick WordPress and browser integration saves me a few minutes for every linked list post I make. Omnifocus syncs effortlessly and reliably between my Macs and mobile devices; I spend little time worried about lost contacts or todos. With Reeder I can scroll through and consume a day’s worth of tech, design and film news on my subway commute home.
Paring down your app set to mostly those that increase efficiency or save time isn’t a groundbreaking idea, but it is easier said than done. Like many in the tech industry, I get a regular share of recommendations via Twitter and RSS. I use to always download what had buzz with the tech bloggers, what was ‘innovative’ and what just looked cool. Yet after playing with a hot new app for a few days, 95 percent of the time I’d delete it or move it to some back folder, never to be touched again.
Don’t let this be you. Make hard decisions on the apps and tools you use. Granted there’s always edge cases: Gaming apps by their very nature should be arguably something that takes more, not less of your time if it’s a fun experience. There’s also something powerful with occasional experimentation: I downloaded Clear knowing full well it wasn’t a tool for me. Yet just playing with the app for a buck and hour of my time gave me design inspirations for my day job. Not everyone has the same priorities either. With my mobile workflow, saving time is paramount; I want to get in, get my work done and get out as efficiently as possible. You might instead favor aesthetic beauty, or great icons, or other traits.
Whatever that app goal is, stay focused. Is that new app that’s new and noteworthy on the App Store really going to integrate well with your workflow? Is it really better than what you already have? Ask those questions before you download.
This isn’t a perfect design brief; the Frameographer team skips over a few major wireframes along with a few big jumps in logic. Yet one fact is made clear: simple sketches lead to big ideas. You don’t have to make a masterpiece. Just by putting pen to paper (or stylus to tablet) you can rapidly work through UI ideas pretty rapidly.
Like many other bloggers, I'm wedded to Google for my analytics. That poses a problem on the go; Google Analytics isn't mobile friendly, requiring Flash for their graphs and a lot of extraneous zooming to navigate the core UI.
Enter Analytics, a new app by Wizamin. It gives you just the basics: visitors, page views, average pages viewed per user. Swipe left and right to switch accounts. Swipe up and down to jump to different time periods. Simple, fast, really pretty and colorful for a buck. For at a glance analytics tracking it's great.
How long before customers look left, look right, see everyone with the same phone or tablet and start itching for something different? My friend Peter Yared contends that the trend has already started in the UK where the “18-25 class” now favors the smorgasbord of Samsung devices as a relief from the iPhone uniform.
I appreciate what Jean-Louis Gassée is after here but the argument doesn't quite stand up.
Apple's strength derives from its focus, iterating on a few core products endlessly. Multiple iPhone sizes don't mesh with that philosophy.
Besides, the iPhone gets a cosmetic refresh almost every year to keep things interesting. If demand gets high enough, Apple could always crank out a few iPod like color variations alongside the requisite white and black.
Clever, streamlined note taking app from Agile Tortoise. Its speed is really slick; I’m able to write a quick note almost as fast as I tap the icon, and it’s exportability to Markdown really comes in handy for WordPress on the go. With a single action I can easily fire off a message as a tweet in Tweetbot, a nice touch.
Nevertheless, a lack of Dropbox integration is pretty much a deal breaker for me at this point. I can manually copy clipboard contents over to Notesy, but it’s cumbersome and it largely defeats the speed benefit this app has over others. I really liked Ben Brooks’ suggestion on an integration path:
I want Drafts to have a button that I can send the .txt file for the Draft to a folder in my Dropbox. Not every note needs to go there, but I want to be able to send one if needed.
If Drafts gains Dropbox functionality in a later version, I’d probably give it another shot. Then again, my workflow is far more Dropbox centric than probably most. It’s well worth a look for almost anyone else, especially at its very reasonable $0.99 price.
We’re in a fast changing digital landscape; innovation has worked into almost every device I use regularly and with cloud syncing my content is accessible from anywhere. So why do higher end cameras, most notably digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) ones, feel absent from the picture? Big manufacturers like Canon and Nikon push out better sensors and higher end lenses year after year, but the core design remains unchanged. Contrast that progress with the rapid evolution in smaller, camera-equipped devices like the iPhone and Canon S95, both in terms of technology advances and mainstream adoption. If the trend continues the DSLR will be relegated to a niche device for professionals only.
The problem starts with perception: compared to hot new consumer tech like the Kinect and iPhone, DSLRs, at least to a mainstream audience, are run of the mill if not behind the curve. First and foremost, in a golden age of lightweight, powerful technology, DSLRs remain heavy and bulky. They also have a higher learning curve than most other tech devices: even using its simplest operation, the most basic DSLR offers a bewildering array of dial settings, zoom levels and menu adjustments.
Given the high volume of content I read online, Readability, a new subscription based web and mobile reading app, seemed like a good fit; I decided to sign up for a month and try it out on my Mac, iPad and iPhone. Four weeks and over a hundred read articles later, while the experience isn’t perfect, I’d recommend it to almost anyone, especially those that read frequently from blogs and other online sources. The HTML5 mobile app has some bugs, but my current pairing of Readability on the desktop and Instapaper for mobile makes for an excellent experience.
Basics
Readability is a twist on existing apps like Instapaper with a built in compensation scheme for content writers and publishers. The app’s foremost objective is to deliver an uncluttered reading experience for what’s online. Users find any web page article of interest (e.g. blog post, news story) and use a browser based extension or bookmarklet to strip the article down to its essence: No ads, ample white space, clear typography, and sparse imagery. In addition, 70% of subscribers’ membership fees go directly to the publishers and writers behind articles read through Readability. That often translates to pennies to the writer per article read, but cumulatively it adds up. I see Readability’s payment system as one step closer to a paid ecosystem that doesn’t rely on traditional sources of revenue like banner ads and paywalls. The whole process also requires almost zero commitment on the part of content publishers, just a registration with readability.com to receive revenue.
Considering the App Store’s maturity I’m surprised how many new iOS apps like Pulse and Pocket Casts deviate significantly from Apple’s native visual style. Back in 2008 or 2009 such wide deviations and experiments were expected, yet today I’m downloading apps with solid functionality and design in a package that feels and looks like something Apple could have never designed; that?s a problem.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not suggesting developers that blindly copy the company’s aesthetic to automatically expect greatness. Originality of design and function, not to mention solid customer support and a well written code base are all critical factors behind app success. Nevertheless, the appeal of Apple?s native app look shouldn?t be underestimated: Remember a huge subset of iOS users spend most of their time buried deep within Apple’s native apps (e.g. Safari, Calendar, Mail, Messages), only occasionally branching off into other third-party apps. If a third-party app it just looks or feel too different from Apple?s approach, especially for novice users, it runs a risk of being ignored or eliminated. In addition, the bias of the Mac tech elite (e.g. John Gruber, Macworld) have toward more native Apple looking apps is significant; often it’s their recommendations that trickle down to other power users (e.g. yours truly) who in turn ultimately spread their influence to a wider, more casual audience.