Instapaper 3.0 is here
blog.instapaper.com
blog.instapaper.com
This sentence worried me though:
>With these great new additions, many customers won’t even >need the bookmarklet anymore.
Without the bookmarklet Instapaper stops being useful to me - I have no interest in another source of information, however 'social' or curated that may be.
I feel that instapaper is trying to move into the 'sharing cool stuff' space, which is already over saturated, instead of concentrating on it's original stronghold of providing a great consumption experience.
He does kill features from time to time, but he always seems to mention that those features were very lightly used. Presumably that's not the case here (since otherwise it has been hard to make the app valuable, before this new feature).
It's better to gain traction on one platform than to languish on multiple platforms.
Android and iOS have two very different userbases; I hear that iOS seems to include more people willing to pay for software than Android. On the other hand, Android has fewer apps.
Most importantly, you need to get noticed on at least one platform. If you have a limited amount of resources, you'd be better off focusing on one great product. Once that's done, move to other platforms if that makes sense for your business growth.
When people ask me why I like/choose the iPhone , I point at those 2 apps.
One wonders why the "drink from the firehose" style reader (Reeder) hasn't been merged with the "save for later" style reader (Instapaper). Everyone I know who finds one of those indispensable becomes enamored with the other pretty easily.
My regular flow is to have everything (RSS for blogs with long posts and RSS for simple alert/notification blogs) in Google Reader and filter through it there, only viewing everything once. Anything longer than a paragraph in there goes to Instapaper, to really read later.
I sent random links and website I want to save to Instapaper as well and was moving them to Pinboard manually on the website, but this will definitely save me time.
[1] https://market.android.com/details?id=org.hijava.instapaper
Outright theft? Maybe not. But definitely not kosher.
[ Also, the 'developer website' is an inaccessible Chinese social network page. Awesome! ]
Grooveshark is one example that comes to mind.
Why does it come to mind? What it so different between Grooveshark and Spotify that Spotify is on the AppStore but Grooveshark can't be?
I see their iPhone application page saying they can't be on the AppStore, but no explanation as to why they can't be (and no, "Apple is unwilling to work with Grooveshark to approve our application." is not an explanation) and the blog post announcement does not provide any more information. The only mention I found is an other, older blog post saying the following:
> Earlier this afternoon, Apple sent us a letter notifying us that, due to a complaint they received from Universal Music Group UK
Apple's behavior seems logical and sensible here as the "gatekeeper" of their store, it's not their job to resolve trouble between UMG and Grooveshark.
And again, Spotify was still in the AppStore last time I checked, so what Grooveshark's app is not, in and of itself, "a [...] killer apps there which would never make it to the AppStore."
It comes to mind because I really wanted Grooveshark on my iPhone and would have paid for it but it's not there. (Except by jailbreaking and I'm not willing to do that)
Apple's behavior seems logical and sensible here as the "gatekeeper" of their store, it's not their job to resolve trouble between UMG and Grooveshark.
They're already trying to resolve trouble by doing what UMG wanted. In any case, we could nitpick over that point for hours.
And again, Spotify was still in the AppStore last time I checked, so what Grooveshark's app is not, in and of itself, "a [...] killer apps there which would never make it to the AppStore."
Seriously? Last time I checked, Spotify was only available in about 7 countries. (Last time being 5 minutes ago). I don't see how you could even compare the two services. They work differently.
In any case, my comment wasn't specifically about Grooveshark, rather, to point out that there's a whole class of apps that people may want but would never be available on the App Store for various reasons (legitimate or otherwise) but will be available on Android.
I asked how different they were, because I can't see it apart from Grooveshark's ignoring of IP (which is very much the root of them having been evicted from the AppStore until their resolve the situation). Which is I fear a very debatable "feature".
> In any case, my comment wasn't specifically about Grooveshark, rather, to point out that there's a whole class of apps that people may want but would never be available on the App Store for various reasons (legitimate or otherwise) but will be available on Android.
You specifically pointed out to Grooveshark as an example of that kind of applications. It's not.
My first example of this is always Locale. It's really, really great. http://www.twofortyfouram.com/
It's not available on iOS, and as far as I can tell, can't be. I would actually love to get an iPhone because the hardware is so amazing and software is so polished (for the most part... notifications, I'm looking at you), but given the choice between polish and control, I choose control. At least in this case.
So, to answer the question in the GGGGP: yeah, the Android ecosystem is awesome.
No, why would I do that? I only pointed out that your example was stupid and was not an example of what you asserted.
> yeah, the Android ecosystem is awesome.
I guess, if direct IP theft is awesome.
And I'm still not clear on your stance. So, you don't deny that there are a whole class of applications that are possible on Android that aren't on iOS. Does that mean you agree?
But. You don't believe this makes the Android ecosystem awesome.
You also, marginally relatedly, believe that the prevalence of "IP theft" on the Android ecosystem detracts from its awesomeness?
Do I have that right?
Personally, I don't think "IP theft" is a very good characterization of copyright (or trademark, in this case) infringement. But I suppose that's a whole nother debate.
Also, though, from what I can tell, this app doesn't directly take any images from Instapaper. It's an uppercase "I" in a generic block serif on a gray background. I think it's debatable whether this is a trademark infringement?
Which Api Rules does it violate btw?
That's how I understood it.
When someone asks what my favorite apps are, he is expecting me to tell him about the apps that use the accelerometer in some crazy innovative way. Oh, the look of disappointment when I excitedly talk about Reeder.
Glad to see this. It was irritating to almost-but-not-quite see the first line of text as you scrolled, which sometimes meant you had to scroll back, which sometimes meant you lost your place, which sometimes resulted in hair being pulled out.
(aside from that quibble, love Instapaper and congrats on the great new release!)
Has anyone else run into sorts of issues using Instapaper on the iPhone 4? I hope that 3.0 fixes these issues! Off to download it now. :-)
If you still have issues with 3.0, you should get in touch with Marco. Maybe something's out of whack server-side?
I definitely see them releasing an android-version of instapaper soon. It would be a wasted opportunity if they didn't
Do I have to download a new copy even if I bought the original?
It seems that the updates section has a little bit of a delay.
..agree with everyone that its a true "killer" app for the device. Imagine once Marco and the team starts adding true collaborative filtering based on your past history (and your friends and the broader community of IP users) and suggesting you stuff to read!