6 ms·

I'm one of the first paying customers of Pocket. Alas, their quality has been going down recently. The most important feature - keeping the location inside an

by eliben 11y ago

I'm one of the first paying customers of Pocket. Alas, their quality has been going down recently. The most important feature - keeping the location inside an article between app invocations, is not working. For long articles, if I stop in the middle and want to resume later, there's a 80% chance that Pocket will happily set me right in the beginning. Besides, their rendering for articles with code sucks, so I almost always use "web view", a decision Pocket also forgets every other time. So I end up using Pocket as a convenient keyboard-shortcut to save articles, but on my phone actually open them into Chrome, which has no problem remembering the location in a tab.

kstrauser 11y ago
I've had the same experiences and figured that if I was only using it as bookmarking service then I might as well completely migrate to Pinboard (and various supporting apps). I've been happy with my decision.
paulojreis 11y ago
Similar impressions here. My e-book reader (Kobo Aura) has a native feature for synchronization with a Pocket account, so I end up using Pocket as a glorified bookmarking (and content fetching) service.
dombili 11y ago
Instapaper is annoyingly great at remembering where you left off in an article. I was a Pocket user too (though not a paid one) but I switched to Instapaper because I felt like Pocket was losing focus. I'm a happy paid Instapaper user now.
- eliben 11y ago
  What do you mean by annoyingly great?
  - xeromal 11y ago
    Not OP but maybe you want to restart from the beginning at times because you've forgotten what you had read.
    - dombili 11y ago
      Yep, that's what I meant. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word annoying as there's no way for the app to know that and it's simply working as intended.
- mintplant 11y ago
  I went from Pocket to Instapaper as well. For me, it was because the Pocket web client was getting progressively worse with every update. (Huge floating navbar in a reading view -- seriously? And the UI was dog-slow.)
antjanus 11y ago
There's no WP app for Pocket so I use a 3rd-party app called Poki and it's amazing. Has no issue remembering where you stopped on various articles.
- eliben 11y ago
  Geez, I was trying to figure out what you'd do with a Wordpress app for Pocket, and then it hit me.
- csixty4 11y ago
  Poki is pretty great on a Surface, too. I actually prefer it over the official iOS Pocket app.
colomon 11y ago
Geez, I've been using it for some time now and never had a clue it was supposed to save your position in an article. I just use it as a convenient way to transfer links between my devices.
xoail 11y ago
Shameless plug: I made drumroll.io to simply bookmark and/or send links from pc to phone (drumroll.io/app). It does not require authentication and has chrome extension (drumroll.io/chrome) as well.
- josu 11y ago
  I currently use Pushbullet, are there any reasons why I should switch to drumroll.io?
  - xoail 11y ago
    No particular reason. But I always wanted to push messages even when I am not logged in. So from any computer I can send myself the link/text. I can push to my friends too as long as I know their Phone Name.
    - josu 11y ago
      I registered my phone but the link to the download page doesn't seem to be working: https://www.drumroll.io/drumroll.io/app https://www.drumroll.io/drumroll.io/app How do you handle security. By allowing anybody to push arbitrary links/text to your phone aren't you opening a vector of attack?
      - xoail 11y ago
        It kinda mimics the email. Anyone who has your email can send you messages. You are right about spamming, I am working with external tools to block spams and bots. I will fix the link. Thanks for point out.
  - ebbflowgo 11y ago
    dl'd pushbullet, works great, thanks!
SonicSoul 11y ago
Funny I switched from instapaper to pocket because it was new and shinier. So far I like it more and have not noticed any UX issues. I'll keep an eye out now thanks

by eliben 11y ago

kstrauser 11y ago

I've had the same experiences and figured that if I was only using it as bookmarking service then I might as well completely migrate to Pinboard (and various supporting apps). I've been happy with my decision.

paulojreis 11y ago

Similar impressions here. My e-book reader (Kobo Aura) has a native feature for synchronization with a Pocket account, so I end up using Pocket as a glorified bookmarking (and content fetching) service.

dombili 11y ago

Instapaper is annoyingly great at remembering where you left off in an article. I was a Pocket user too (though not a paid one) but I switched to Instapaper because I felt like Pocket was losing focus. I'm a happy paid Instapaper user now.

eliben 11y ago
What do you mean by annoyingly great?
- xeromal 11y ago
  Not OP but maybe you want to restart from the beginning at times because you've forgotten what you had read.
  - dombili 11y ago
    Yep, that's what I meant. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word annoying as there's no way for the app to know that and it's simply working as intended.
mintplant 11y ago
I went from Pocket to Instapaper as well. For me, it was because the Pocket web client was getting progressively worse with every update. (Huge floating navbar in a reading view -- seriously? And the UI was dog-slow.)

antjanus 11y ago

There's no WP app for Pocket so I use a 3rd-party app called Poki and it's amazing. Has no issue remembering where you stopped on various articles.

eliben 11y ago
Geez, I was trying to figure out what you'd do with a Wordpress app for Pocket, and then it hit me.
csixty4 11y ago
Poki is pretty great on a Surface, too. I actually prefer it over the official iOS Pocket app.

colomon 11y ago

Geez, I've been using it for some time now and never had a clue it was supposed to save your position in an article. I just use it as a convenient way to transfer links between my devices.

xoail 11y ago

Shameless plug: I made drumroll.io to simply bookmark and/or send links from pc to phone (drumroll.io/app). It does not require authentication and has chrome extension (drumroll.io/chrome) as well.

josu 11y ago
I currently use Pushbullet, are there any reasons why I should switch to drumroll.io?
- xoail 11y ago
  No particular reason. But I always wanted to push messages even when I am not logged in. So from any computer I can send myself the link/text. I can push to my friends too as long as I know their Phone Name.
  - josu 11y ago
    I registered my phone but the link to the download page doesn't seem to be working: https://www.drumroll.io/drumroll.io/app https://www.drumroll.io/drumroll.io/app How do you handle security. By allowing anybody to push arbitrary links/text to your phone aren't you opening a vector of attack?
    - xoail 11y ago
      It kinda mimics the email. Anyone who has your email can send you messages. You are right about spamming, I am working with external tools to block spams and bots. I will fix the link. Thanks for point out.
- ebbflowgo 11y ago
  dl'd pushbullet, works great, thanks!

SonicSoul 11y ago

Funny I switched from instapaper to pocket because it was new and shinier. So far I like it more and have not noticed any UX issues. I'll keep an eye out now thanks