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Ten Years of Instapaper
- crb 9y agoIt feels odd that the current owners say "we did this, we launched that" in reference to the years Marco ran Instapaper as a sole proprietor, especially given that Marco explicitly uses "I" as the prounoun for Overcast: https://overcast.fm/skeptics_faq https://overcast.fm/skeptics_faq
- gf263 9y agoYeah its super odd.
- matthewmcg 9y agoEspecially since some of the events are listed with links to Marco Arment’s personal site.
- gumby 9y agoI'm OK with it as it emphasizes that collectively, they all did it, yet the current owners aren't trying to take credit for what they didn't do.
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoI think you kind of get to do that when you own something. I don't think they were being disrespectful, and how else do you talk about history of a product without continuously saying "before we bought it... blah feature"? I think it is akin to when you work at a place for five years but it is bought by another company at the three year mark. How do you put that on your resume? I worked at <new company name> for five years? I worked at <old company name> for five years? Or split it up and make it look like you changed jobs? It's awkward. But ya just gotta let it slide as long as it's not disrespectful.
- james_pm 9y agoAgreed. I think it would have been better to split the timeline into "Marco added..." or "Marco launched..." for anything he did as an individual prior to the acquisition.
- bthdonohue 9y agoBrian from Instapaper here, we originally wrote it that way, but it felt really weird and disjointed, especially if you weren't familiar with the entire history. Just wanted to keep it consistent, not really take credit for Marco's accomplishments.
- draw_down 9y agoIt’s a good app. I’ve used it since the launch.
- gnicholas 9y agoInteresting typo on the name of the dyslexic-friendly font they use. They mashed up OpenDyslexic (which they offer) with Dyslexie (which they do not offer). Fun fact: The latter sued the former unsuccessfully several years back.
- fencepost 9y agoPerhaps they were using a font in which the lower case e and lower case c were pretty similar.
- pixelmonkey 9y agoI sometimes describe Instapaper as "/dev/null for web content". I reflexively share to Instapaper not to read it later, but to absolve guilt for not reading it at all. It is one of my weirdest web habits, on reflection. OTOH, back when del.icio.us was good, I used it for roughly the same purpose.
- Cyph0n 9y ago> /dev/null for web content This is a surprisingly apt comparison, and is probably why I stopped using it a while back.
- paulcole 9y agoI saw somebody who had a bookmarklet to pretend to add things to Instapaper just to get the feeling you’re taking about.
- tptacek 9y agoThis is I think about 60% of the value I get out of Pinboard; most of what it does for me is clear tabs. But I pay for an archive account and it does full-text search, so the other huge benefit is that when what my tabs are full of is PDF ePrint papers, I can search later for things and get results for research questions faster than I can from Google.
- lemonberry 9y agoAgreed. I'd love to have an extension that searches my Pinboard prior to going to a search engine.
- dhruvkar 9y agoFor those who've used Instapaper and Pocket, do you have a clear preference for one?
- bomeor 9y agoI think Pocket is better, by the style, fluency, and because it transforms websites to text better than Ip. But, one of the best features of Instapaper (which doesn't have Pocket) is that you can change the title names. I really like that feature.
- dhruvkar 9y agoThat's a feature I've definitely wanted!
- freewizard 9y agoInstapaper has a dark-themed web version which I like and use a lot. Also Instapaper Premium, which I happily paid for a while, is now available for free for all Instapaper users, which should be consider an advantage. However, I'm using Instapaper for a long while which is the primary reason keep using it.
- gnicholas 9y agoNight mode is nice, and Pocket has it also. Interestingly, they also have advanced font/formatting features as part of their Pro offering. I don’t know if any other apps where advanced formatting options are part of a premium package.
- nvr219 9y agoI just use Evernote.
- aryehof 9y agoDo you save a copy of the page, or just a link. Curious also what people who use Evernote typically do?
- chasote 9y agoI actually enjoyed reading the different attempts at finding the right pricing. I was a happy premium subscriber and an even happier free user. I found it the best service to be able to just click a button and have long articles delivered to my kindle. I do a weekly batching and it just works.
- yeutterg 9y agoAnyone wish Instapaper/Pocket had better Text-to-Speech functionality on mobile?
- gnicholas 9y agoI recently tried Pocket's TTS on my iPhone and found it to be pretty good. The person who recommended it suggested downloading the high-quality "Alex" voice, which is around 900MB. I have plenty of room on my phone right now so it wasn't a big deal—but I could see how others would not want to download this voice. What do you find lacking about it? I've heard (first-hand) it sounds even better on Android. There are offline voices and also live-streamed voices, and it all sounded pretty decent to me.
- ybv 9y agohttps://www.narro.co/ https://www.narro.co/
- ikurei 9y agoThanks for the suggestion, i'll check it out right away. It's a service that converts text or websites to audio. It's voices seem pretty good (I've just tested a couple, both with text in english and in spanish). I love that it haves the ability to integrate the articles I send to Narro into a podcast feed, that I can suscribe to see in Overcast next to my "real" podcast.
- ikurei 9y agoDefinitely. I use it from time to time, but rarely I can get through more than a short article without being too frustrated with something of how it works. Things like pronouncing in an inintelligible way any english words in the middle of an article in spanish, or reading A.P.I. as "A, period. P, period. I, period." make it so that it works great for some articles, and terribly for others.
- scarface74 9y agoJust an FYI, Marco Arment, the original author of Instapaper was also the first employee and architect at Tumblr- where this article is hosted.
- drej 9y agoInstapaper with my first iPad was the best thing ever the year it came out. It was just so convenient (and still is, we just got used to it). When people asked me why I got an iPad, an odd device for its time, I said: e-mail and Instapaper. Back then, people were not accustomed to build tablet-friendly websites and even though Safari was very good, Instapaper was in league of its own when it came to plain old reading, especially when offline.
- sschueller 9y agoThey are lucky to still be in the App Store. Instagram's lawyers have been sending cease and desist letters to anyone using their trademark "Insta". Even apps with words that start with "Insta", like Instant.
- product50 9y agoInstapaper predates Instagram. Pretty sure that cease and desist won't work in their case.
- bvrlt 9y agoInstapaper exists since 2007 and has a trademark on the name filed in August 2010: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:v4hzyi.2.1 http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:v4h... Instagram has their trademark since September 2011 (http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:v4hzyi.4.19 http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:v4h...). So no, Instapaper is not "lucky" to still be in the App Store. Don't assume that because Instagram is well-known that they have more seniority and the rights and abilities to do whatever they want.
- fredsir 9y ago> Don't assume that because Instagram is well-known that they have more seniority and the rights and abilities to do whatever they want. Though it's easy to assume in this day and age.
- bthdonohue 9y agoI believe this only applies to applications that use Instagram's API, which we do not. https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/19/instagram-cracks-down-on-connected-apps-using-insta-and-gram/?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=bufferd29c7&utm_medium=twitter https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/19/instagram-cracks-down-on-c...
- dingo_bat 9y agoI had never heard about this app before. Reading comments here it seemed like a good reading list app. Unfortunately the android app[0] seems abandoned, last update was in August 2017. Anybody know of a good alternative on android? [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.instapaper.android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.instapaper...
- bvrlt 9y agoIt's a bit strange to call an app "Abandoned" because the last update was 6 months ago. When an app is mature and stable, it doesn't require a steady flow of updates to be good and useful (except as a way for developers to show that they are still active and "please" their users). I'd call it abandoned if it didn't fit the platform standards, if it was buggy, if it didn't run on some new devices…
- dingo_bat 9y agoIf you go to the istore version history for the same app, there have been regular feature updates and bug fixes in the same time frame. Are you implying that the android version simply doesn't have any bugs to fix? This update in September is enlightening: Added support for iOS 11 password autofill. You know which other OS introduced system-wide autofill suppport? Android Oreo. I think it's safe to say that Instapaper is abandoned on Android.
- bthdonohue 9y ago
- cstuder 9y agoI still love the app after years of use. But anybody else experiencing lots of bug with the paging view and automatic night mode on iOS? (Page in night mode, but menu buttons and status bars still in day mode, offset of the page incorrect...) Reporting bugs always met with silence.
- corobo 9y agoCan we as a community agree to be really careful and in no way vague or clickbaity when it comes to posting things about Instapaper? Ever since Pinterest bought them I've been waiting for the sunset message
- nathan_f77 9y agoPhew, that's a lot of work! I have to wonder, will Instapaper ever be "finished"? If all the engineers went home, would it just run by itself? It's hard to see how a competitor could execute better and steal any customers. It seems just fine the way it is. Maybe many of the engineers have moved on to different projects at Pinterest, but even then, what's left to do at Pinterest? I just looked up "new features in Pinterest", and they're working on AI to identify different things in photos [1]. "Lens can recommend outfits for you if you snap a photo of clothes that are already in your closet" - That's actually a really cool idea. But it kind of feels like a different startup tacked on to the Pinterest brand. I guess there are a lot of directions they can branch out into. Maybe they'll eventually become like Google, working on a lot of unrelated projects. If Google can do it, it's hard to see why other companies can't build up a large portfolio of disparate apps and services. Anyway, I hope they keep Instapaper running instead of shutting it down. I don't use it myself, but I just like the idea of "finished software" that runs for the next hundred years. Everyone's always trying to change things and increase growth, but they usually end up shooting themselves in the foot. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-lens-updates-new-features-2017-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-lens-updates-new-fe...