10 Killer iPhone Apps: #3 Instapaper

Instapaper isn’t instant.  It has nothing to do with paper either.  Instapaper is essentially a simple tool to save web pages for reading later on your electronic devices.  (Is it just me or does the title of this Read-Later-Without-Paper app just kill you?!)  You flag the content you want to save by using a BOOKMARKLET – essentially a little app that looks like a bookmark button in your browser.  To get started, go to instapaper.com/extras and drag the button to your browser bar. Then you view a page and press the “Read Later” button. All major browsers support it – even Mobile Safari on your iPhone (although Apple makes it much harder than it should be).  Press that “Read Later” button and BOOM! – it magically appears on your Instapaper app. On your iPhone.  Brilliant.  This simple little one-trick pony has the potential to transform the way you read online content.  Listen to Marco, the author or this app, explain the thinking behind it:

From a personal perspective, I appreciate great writing, but I’ve become frustrated with the quick-consumption nature of many devoted blog readers. Authors are encouraged to cater to drive-by visitors hurrying through their feed readers by producing lightweight content for quick skimming.

There’s no time to sit and read anything when you’re going through 500 feed items while responding to email, chatting, and watching bad YouTube videos.

As a result, popular blogs are now full of useless “list posts” with no substance or value.

Well-written content is out there, and we do have opportunities every day to read it — just not when we’re in information-skimming, speed-overload mode.

Guilty!

Armed with this app and a can-do sense of cerebral optimism, I now read differently on the web.  Instead of power-skimming like an RSS junkie looking for a quick hit of news here or an amusing title there, I now find myself hunting for the writers that bring CONTENT to the table for a long, slow meal.  Instead of glancing at the size of my scroll bar as a reader-pain-indicator (small=long & painful, long=short & palatable), I ACTUALLY READ THE CONTENT to dip my foot into the pool and determine if it is worth diving in later when I can give it my full attention.  While the internet IS an all-you-can-eat buffet of information, the practice of gorging on as many short bites of empty-calorie courses always leaves me feeling empty – like I must have missed something and if I keep chewing, surely I will find fulfillment.

Instapaper is a call to carefully check the menu, order, get comfortable, and savor each course.  The beauty of this app extends beyond loading your iPhone chock full of meaty morsels:

• Your hand-picked articles appear on the Instapaper web site
• Your bookmarked Instapaper items are also available as an RSS feed, they magically appear in Google Reader…
• And on your preferred iPhone or iPad RSS reader (future pick?)
• And if you own a Kindle, once a week, Instapaper can send a single file with all of the week’s bookmarked stories directly to your reader.
• You can use a secret email address given to you by Instapaper to send any length of message to your que
• And you will find many iPhone apps – like Twitter – support the open API, allowing you to send content to Instapaper FROM INSIDE other applications.

BONUS: NO ADS

It is surreal to read anything on the web without ads, but Instapaper goes beyond serving up squeeky-clean, ad-free text in the app itself.  Since Instapaper already has the technology to scrape pages for content and throw out the fat, they have cooked up a couple of gems for everyone to enjoy, sans iPhone.

Instapaper Text bookmarklet

Install this bookmarklet to instantly view any compatible web page in Instapaper’s Text view, right in your browser. This is for immediate viewing and does not add the page to your Instapaper account.

Mobilizer

Browse the web from mobile devices using Instapaper’s Text view to save bandwidth, reduce loading times, and optimize pages for small screens. Start here on your mobile phone: http://instapaper.com/m