Chances are, you stumble upon a lot of articles during the day that look interesting, but that you don't have time to read right now. Lots of services have cropped up to solve this problem, and today we're looking at the most popular three and pitting them against one another: Read It Later, Instapaper, and Readability. Here's how they stack up.
We've touched on this subject once before, but with the well-known Readability service finally releasing apps for iOS and Android, we thought it time to take another look. Even if you've been using one of the above apps for awhile, a lot has changed, and Readability does shake things up a bit. Here's a quick look at what each service offers, and who would be best suited to each app.
Read It Later was the first of these bookmark and read later services, and as such has an impressive spread of supported devices and apps. It may not be the prettiest, but it has some nice organization features and has great support for embedded video.
Supported Devices: Read It Later has official clients for iOS, Android, the Kindle Fire, and the web. There are also third party clients for Windows Phone and WebOS available.
Supported Apps: Read it Later has, by a good margin, the most support among third party apps. If you want to save articles from Pulse, Flipboard, the Onion, TweetBot, the Alien Blue Reddit Client, and other apps, Read It Later is the service to use. It also has a bookmarklet that works in any browser and a save-by-email function for everything else. If you like browser extensions, there are a few third-party ones available. You can view the full list of supported apps here.
Interface & Features: If you buy the pro version of the app, you're also privy to some nice features, includeing the ability to share articles via email, Twitter, Google Reader, and lots of other services. It's social features sadly don't go very far beyond that, but it's support for embedded video is awesome, and something you can't get in the other two apps. It also includes a one touch rotation lock, a tagging system for organizing your reading list, and more. Its feature list isn't quite as impressive as Instapaper's, and its interface isn't quite as good-looking, but the embedded video support is enough to make it a serious competitor. It's also the only client that doesn't downsize all of the images in a given article, which is a nice touch.
Price: The Read It Later service is free, but the iOS and Android apps cost $2.99 for the pro versions. The free versions are hardly worth using, since they're stripped of all their useful features, but it's nice to have them there if you want to play with the interface before you decide to buy it.
Who Should Use It: When in doubt, Read It Later probably supports your device of choice and the apps you use. It has a solid feature set and a more-than-good-enough interface, plus it's supported by nearly everyone that supports a bookmark and read later app. It isn't my first choice, but if Instapaper and Readability don't cut it for any reason, Read It Later will.
Instapaper has a nice interface and some very cool advanced features, but its biggest strength lies in its article discovery. Not only can you save articles you found on the web, but the ability to follow your friends on Instapaper is a great way to pick up a few more, plus the Editor's Picks help you find articles you wouldn't have otherwise read. It's mainly focused on the Mac and iOS side of things, but has a lot of third party support on other platforms too.
Supported Devices: Instapaper officially only supports iOS, the Kindle, and its web interface, though you can get third party clients for Android and other platforms like Windows Phone 7. You can also export your articles in ePub format, for use on any ereader that supports it.
Supported Apps: Instapaper doesn't have quite as many supported apps as Read It Later, and many of them are iOS and Mac apps (like Reeder, NetNewsWire, and Twitter), but the list is still impressive. You can also submit articles via a bookmarklet or by email. Check out Instapaper's list of supported apps for more information.
Interface & Features: Instapaper's interface on iOS is fantastic, though it's web interface is pretty ugly (not to mention confusing). Still, if you're using it on iOS, it gives you six different typefaces to choose from, a dark mode for reading at night (plus a sepia mode for an in-between reading experience), and other little tweaks. It also has a very cool tilt scrolling function, that lets you tilt your device to scroll up and down. It can share articles via email, Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, and others, plus it lets you follow other Instapaper users and read their "liked" articles. I've noticed it has more issues parsing certain complicated web pages (like Lifehacker, for instance), which is kind of a bummer—but the rest of the interface is fantastic enough that I almost don't notice. Lastly, it lets you organize your articles into folders, which is great if you tend to keep a bunch on hand for later access. The newest update contains a full-screen reading mode and a swipe gesture to get back to the home screen, just like Readability has—though the whole thing is a bit smoother in Readability.
Price: The Instapaper service is free, but the iOS app is $4.99. In addition, if you want to read your Instapaper articles on other devices (like Android), you'll have to subscribe to their $1/month pro service, which also gets you article search, better Kindle support, and more.
Who Should Use It: If you're a Mac and iOS user, this is definitely the app to go with. Even if you aren't, though, I'd highly recommend giving Instapaper a serious look. It's the priciest of all the options, but it also has a great feature set and lots of configurability. You'll definitely want to check and make sure all your favorite apps support it, though, which can be a bit more difficult if you're an Android user.
Readability has always been a big name in making web articles more readable, but it's way behind the times on the bookmark service and mobile apps. Still, while it may not be as mature and feature-filled as its cousins, it might be the best looking of them all—plus it's completely and 100% free.
Supported Devices: Readability supports iOS, Android, and Kindle devices, and it has extensions for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, plus the usual bookmarklets and add-by-email features.
Supported Apps: Readability's new, so don't expect to see a ton of support around your favorite apps just yet. Certain apps, like Pulse, Reeder, Tweetbot, and Ubersocial all work with Readability, but not much else. Check out Readability's apps page for more info, and keep an eye out for more widespread support now that Readability finally has a few mobile apps out.
Interface & Features: Readability is straight up gorgeous. When it comes to looks, it's only slightly better than Instapaper, but its usability is where it really shines. Your controls stay out of your way when you read, only popping up when you tap on the page, and you can swipe to the left to go back to your reading list. The animations are smooth and the typeface options are great, plus you can share to Twitter, Facebook, and email. It doesn't have any standout features, unfortunately (it doesn't even support folders), so you'll have to be a big fan of UI design to appreciate it. But, if you don't need the extra features of Read It Later and Instapaper, this is where it's at.
Price: The service and its mobile apps are all completely free.
Who Should Use It: If you don't need integration with all your other apps—just a browser bookmarklet and maybe a Twitter app—Readability is a great choice. Its interface is probably the best of the bunch, and it supports both iOS and Android. If you're looking for extra features, though, you can probably write off Readability right now—it's far too young compared to the others, and doesn't have nearly the feature set or widespread support that they do. This is the perfect bookmark and read later app for your grandma, but not for the app-hungry power user—yet. Keep an eye on this one, because with time, new features could tip the scales in its favor.
So which one is best? Per usual, it's impossible to say. I'm really digging Readability right now, despite its lack of features, and it's a close call between it and Instapaper (as long as you're doing your reading on iOS). Read It Later is king when it comes to support from other apps and for other devices, so if you're sharing articles from all over the place—especially ones that contain embedded video—it might win out over the other two. Try them all out to see what you like best, and if you have a favorite, tell us why you love it in the comments below.
No comments:
Post a Comment