Show HN: We built an app for reading articles saved for later | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: We built an app for reading articles saved for later

alfreadapp.com

104 pointsshkliarau94 comments

Hey HN,

I'm Fedor, co-founder, and designer of Alfread, read-later app with a focus on the reading habit.

Internet is full of talented writers, articles, and newsletters that are worth reading, not just saving. Our goal with Alfread is to create a place that feels exciting to come back to. For new knowledge from your saved articles, for fresh perspectives on old topics, and sometimes for fun!

But a read-later app is not a to-do list. Not every article has to be read, it's not a chore.

That's why Alfread helps manage your queue giving quick actions to archiving and snoozing with a familiar Tinder-like interface.

We know, how hard it is to start and keep using new apps. To ensure a smooth start and get the most out of Alfread fast, you can connect your Instapaper/Pocket account to sync all your unread links.

Here's how Dustin McCaffree described his experience with the app: "As soon as I signed up, I had content and value. It just uses Instapaper or Pocket like usual for me to collect articles. But then it reminds me to read, lets me set streaks, allows me to "read later" or "archive." Then, if I haven't read them after a month, it'll auto-archive them. Boom "

Give it a try and let us know what you think!

A small quirk of onboarding is that if you select a suggested time slot (ie; when you arrive at work) and go back after thinking "Ah actually, maybe at bed", it doesn't give you the timeslot suggestions again.

Good catch!

This is great. I always feel like I have to read stuff because I’ll forget to do it later and I hate the “reading list” thing in apple

Ha, why do you hate the reading list in apple? A few people asked us to sync their reading lists to Alfread but Apple doesn't allow that, of course

They don’t allow it in their TOS or App Store guidelines?

Desktop Safari supports bookmark (& reading list) export via an HTML file on the off chance you’re not aware, and it isn’t banned.

We might be talking about different things: one off export is possible like you mentioned but no way to sync saved links to the reading list continuously as there’re no API’s for that from Apple

On Desktop Safari the reading list is stored in a Bookmarks plist file you can grab and filter out Reading List items from, might be worth having some little desktop util for a 1 time sync to move people onto your platform? It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing.

Here is an example with some code showing how someone did it so they could upload it to Pinboard: https://brettterpstra.com/2015/01/06/reading-list-catcher/

Ah, could be good actually. Definitely better than nothing, thanks for finding that link, appreciate it

No problem - and congrats on the launch!

Thank you!

Add pinboard support for us who don't use Pocket or Instapaper, and you've got at least one extra user :)

We might!

I think this could be very useful, any plans for Android or web app?

Also maybe a nice to have feature would be to group similar articles by theme so that when I sit down to read one article I can read all articles around the same theme while I'm still focused.

One day :) We’re a 2-person team with 1 dev, so resources are quite limited, but hope to get there.

Great suggestion! We have auto-tags for that right now, but of course it’s not perfect yet. But could be nice to suggest similar ones at the end of the one I just read, like you suggested

Alfread looks great, congrats. I'm going to give it a spin, but I would desperately need a web app to go with the iOS one.

I usually just open a myriad tabs on my computers and my phone and hope I recall there was something I meant to read later. Doesn't work too well. Google Keep comes close, but the UX doesn't really do it for me.

What I'd love it a simple (think HN) interface where I can scroll through article titles. And being able to save articles seamlessly from anywhere (app, bookmarklet, maybe even email to a custom address).

Any other apps I've tried were sadly bloated.

> What I'd love it a simple (think HN) interface where I can scroll through article titles. And being able to save articles seamlessly from anywhere (app, bookmarklet, maybe even email to a custom address).

Text file. Use cut&paste to put the desired URLs in. Annotate with more cut&paste or type your own.

Thank you! We do have a list of articles to scroll through on the Search tab :) Seamless saving is on our mind but have to rely on Instapaper/Pocket for saving on the desktop

As a android user I see a lot of IOS only apps on Show HN but can't recall an Android only one. Is there a business reason for this given that android has over 70% of the market.

for paid apps, it's because iOS users are more willing to pay real money when compared to Android users. As for free apps, I suppose it's more complicated. For a small team of 1 dev, if that dev has iOS, then that's what they'll build first.

I don't build mobile apps, but I hear generally people prefer building for iOS. Plus, they can use the latest APIs and not worry about supporting a 6 year old OS.

Imagine testing your iOS app. You get a small number of iPhones and you're done. Now compare to Android.

I'm an Android user who constantly wonders whether he shouldn't give up and switch to iOS.

The people who use HN frequently are startup fiends, and Apple is an expert at extracting value from their users. The rest of the story writes itself.

Hi Fedor, it looks good, and I'm going to evaluate it soon! Could you please tell why it's free and if it's going to be a paid app soon? If yes, what would be the pricing model? If not, what is the monetization strategy for the app if you don't sell customer data? Thanks.

It's free-mium with a Premium plan that includes some pro features if the generous free plan is not enough :)

I'm glad there's a pro plan. Personally, if I'm going to add something to my workflow, I prefer to know that it'll be maintained and stick around for some time! Not to say that there's a 1:1 between paid services and them living long but charging customers is at least a good first indication that a service is serious about their offering :) I just signed up for a month and best of luck!

Definitely makes sense! Let us know how it goes :)

Is this tongue-and-cheek? Seems like you are creating value for people and should be compensated. Or is there some monetization of user data?

It’s been a question for a long time whether go freemium or just paid with a trial. We went along with freemium since biggest competitors offer that too so we are in a similar position. We don’t collect user data so we can’t sell it

I'm excited to try out a new reader app, especially one that integrates with Pocket and Instapaper. Those apps haven't added many new features in years, so there's room for innovators in the space, and using their APIs gives people an easy offramp. Smart!

One bit of feedback on the onboarding process: you hit people with the subscription prompt before they've started using the app, and you show them the features they can only have if they pay. At this point in the process, they have no idea what other features are in the app, and whether they want to keep using it at all.

I would never subscribe to an app — or even start a free trial that will automatically rollover into a paid subscription — before exploring the app a bit. Perhaps you could put a comparison checklist at this stage, so people can see what features are included in the free version? I probably still wouldn't subscribe at that point, but at least it would feel like the app has shown me the relevant info before asking me to sign up.

I do realize this is for a free trial, not the paid subscription, but I don't want to put another to-do on my calendar for "cancel app subscription for $appIJustDownloaded".

Looking forward to trying out the app and seeing what's under the hood. Good luck!

Thanks for such an insightful comment! Saving is a big part of read later apps, so we didn’t want users to do too much to start. I agree with you on the onboarding flow as a user, but data shows that it’s the best place to put it actually. You miss 100% of shots you don’t take kind of situation. But we’re trying to not be too pushy about it. Let us know how it goes!

Liking it so far. You do a good job of explaining how to activate the share extension, which is not an easy task!

One low-hanging fruit is to have an option for the page background color to match the system theme dynamically, instead of having to set it into day/night mode manually each time.

I also sent you guys a separate email regarding a collaboration possibility with my company's reading enhancement tech. I hope my emails is buried under a pile of front-page-of-HN-inbound-messages! Congrats on your launch.

The theme should match the background automatically , it doesn't work for you?

Will look into the email today, thank you!

You're right — the theme does match the system theme automatically! The UI in the Aa setting doesn't indicate this will happen, but it's a nice surprise that the default behavior is to match the system theme. Well done!

Neat! Congratulations. My one question was whether you sync to Readwise and it looks like you have that covered. Does that include highlights or annotations made in Alfread?

I also have to be that guy and ask if the similarity to alfredapp.com ever came up. :) For a sec I thought they were adding a reading workflow feature, which would be awesome.

Thank you! Yep, highlights made in Alfread are synced to Readwise. We don’t have annotations yet but stay tuned. Lol, yeah it has been mentioned: someone said that it’s a poor choice of the name since it’s so similar to Alfred. Naming is one hell of a challenge

I can see Twitter support, but will it work for storing and organizing Twitter threads? Great design tho

It will! You can save Twitter threads to Alfread just like any link and it will make it into an easy to read article which you can also highlight.

For anyone else looking for the privacy policy https://alfread.notion.site/Alfread-Privacy-Policy-5e67f4f92...

Thanks for sharing! Did anything stand out to you? To be honest, we did it last second but basically we don’t have accounts, don’t store any personal information, and everything stays on your device

I didn't see it on your website, but I eventually found it using the App Store instead. Other than that, very clear.

Hey team - been on the hunt for a new read it later app since Instapaper has become unusably buggy and Pocket has issues of its own.

Very first article I tried to pull via my Pocket account didn’t pull the full article though (which I only noticed since I just hopped over from Pocket):

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/w...

Then the very next article I tried only loaded in web view, while it was available as text only in Pocket.

Would love to see additional font options too!

Hey Jeff, parsing isn’t our strongest but it’s the very next thing we are improving. What other fonts would you like to see?

Cool website!

If I understand correctly you help me to actually read the articles I saved unlike Instapaper/Pocket that only allow me to dump them?

What are the dynamics you developed to make me read them? (I use Pocket)

Great question! We're doing a few things here: managing articles, reminding to read them, and gamification.

As reading later is not a chore, Alfread helps archive or postpone articles with a Tinder-like interface, so you can find a gem you want to read right now.

Reminders work when or where you want them. For example, you can set a time reminder for your lunch break or breakfast. Or set you bus stop as a reminder, if you commute to work, for example.

Any habit needs a nudge and a reward. Reminders work like nudges and rewards are small celebrations when you finish articles and achieve your weekly reading goal.

Do you know any other ways that helped you get into any habit in the past?

Any chance of integrating it with built-in Reading List in Safari?

Impossible on iOS, no APIs available. Would need a macOS companion app and even then it probably won’t be allowed on the App Store.

We’d love to but not possible (no surprise from Apple here)

I created a read-later service pre-Instapaper ca. ~2005 and only recently ditched all of them after having ~10k articles in the queue. Today I only use Safari's reading list and purge it every morning. If it's important/really interesting, I'll read it immediately — all these services just provide peace of mind but won't solve the time or discipline issue.

Sounds like a solid workflow! "Purging it every morning" sounds key here since you don't let it sit for ages

Cool app. But that website really buggy for me (chrome macos).

Looks like they are - kind of cool idea - placing 'overlay' screenshots on top of a phone, then css transforming them on scroll to 'swipe away.' But it doesn't really work for me.

Maybe the apple idea of using a video and controlling the timeline on scroll might work better

Hm, that’s weird. Should be fine on chrome macos, will check. Cool idea with the video!

Are there any plans to be able to export highlights? Sync with Evernote would be ideal. I connect [NeuraCache](https://neuracache.com) to my Evernote for spaced repetition and this would be an awesome fit.

For now there's Readwise integration that lets you export highlights from Alfread to Readwise to then Evernote: https://www.roxinekee.com/blog/readwise No immediate plans to export highlights to Evernote directly for now though. NeuraCache looks really interesting, thanks for sharing!

Love this! Is there the functionality to pull in email newsletters from iOS outlook mail app?

Not yet! What I’m doing for now is opening the web version and saving that instead. Not ideal but does the job

Really interesting idea! Would love to try it out when it's available for Android (or Web)

Second this. I have a lot of stuff I save for later and just don't get around to reading, been looking for a solution.

Have you found/tried any?

No but thinking of hacking something together myself.

I share links with telegram.

It then blasts me with reminders during set hours or if one of the articles is trending fast.

I can remove from list once read.

Hope to get there some day ;)

I've been thinking recently about making something that would allow me to print my daily saved articles. Kind of like my own newspaper. I hardly use my inkjet printer as it is and I much prefer reading from paper than a screen.

Love the idea! Haven’t tried but there’s this https://www.myscreenbreak.com/?ref=producthunt

Seems like it worth a try. I just installed the app but when I checked I see that it collect location data and link it to the user, I wonder why?

Did you see it on the App Store page? We filled that out wrong: we use the location for location-based notifications if the user sets them but don’t collect any data or even know any personal information as we don’t have accounts. We’ll fix it on the App Store page to avoid the confusion

Yes I found it on app store page. Thank you for clarification. Good work on the app.

Thanks!

Clean and excellent UI. Keep doing the amazing work

Thank you!

Was interested, but seeing that it requires a subscription rather than outright purchase, prevented me from even considering it sorry.

Unfortunately subscriptions are the best way to support ongoing development. Understand it’s not for everyone though

Seems offering nothing better than Pocket. Pocket is multiplatform and integrated in Firefox.

It seems to offer reminders (at time and place) to read unread articles, which is pretty cool.

And a pretty cool Tinder-like interface, stats, streaks, sorting options (including shuffle) and much more!

Ex-Pocket users that have since moved to Alfread would disagree with you :)

Kudos guys, love the clean design

Thanks Rony!

Any plans to add Raindrop.io?

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic but for me the website is overwhelming. Everything is very large and animated which makes me dizzy. I don't know what is happening when I scroll.

I actually came here to say the opposite. I thought the landing page was really well done.

How do you access it? I tried to open it on mobile just now and it looks ok, it's the PC version that bugs me.

It is on-topic :) Thanks for saying that, I felt a bit like that when designing it but the feedback we’ve gotten so far was really positive. Might consider something less in a good sense overwhelming for the next version

While this isn't for me as I don't use iOS daily, I wanted to say that I'm impressed with your response to feedback.

And, for what it's worth, I saw the landing page on desktop and it felt nicely done, and the animations had a purpose.

Ha, thanks! Just trying my best, first time (or maybe second) posting here

It’s really nicely done on the whole!

My feeling is that there is just a bit too much motion happening at once. I think the issue is that as you scroll (I’m on an iPhone) your eye is drawn to the content that has just scrolled into view but the content below then starts to animate too early, so you’re distracted by the motion happening below the content that you’re trying to read.

This happens multiple times (for each content block…)

I think you probably just need to delay the start of the next animation until you’ve scrolled down a bit further, and perhaps even reduce the amount of movement? It doesn’t need much motion to still give that dynamic feel.

It’s so close to being quite an awesome landing page otherwise!

Edit: also while we’re all here playing backseat designer…. The first animation of the iPhone showing some sort of archiving sequence seems to run too early for me - I don’t really understand what it’s demonstrating. By the time I’ve scrolled the iPhone into view, the archive overlay has already popped out and I didn’t get chance to see what the screen before that was showing. So it’s slightly confusing (though it looks nice!)

Thanks a lot for such a detailed reply! I agree with a lot of your feedback but I’m limited by Readymag which I used to create the site which doesn’t allow me to set animations quite right but I’ll try again :)

Same feeling here, I'm on a 1920x1200 display. There are things animating at the bottom of the viewport that have disappeared by the time they're centred. The entire page is about 5 bullet points worth of text, but is in a massive font and requires three pages of distracting animated boxes. I can't just scan the text and see what the app does. Gimme all the info with no scrolling, and if you really want to go wild, do it below the fold.

Years ago, I created a file text file (unimaginatively named `links.txt`). In it I save links to articles to read later, along with a subject. I have categories in the file.

I fixed my text editor to be able to open a browser on a link I click.

I don't really know what else is necessary.

[I quit using browser bookmarks because 1) it cannot be backed up 2) does not survive reinstalling the browser 3) does not move to other machines 4) cannot add a text description 5) cannot categorize them 6) cannot print them.]

Browser bookmarks have long since been able to be bookmarked, categorized, synced to other machines, can include description, and if you fiddle a little - print them too.

Not sure what you're talking about here, really.

> [I quit using browser bookmarks because 1) it cannot be backed up 2) does not survive reinstalling the browser 3) does not move to other machines 4) cannot add a text description 5) cannot categorize them 6) cannot print them.]

The old Netscape bookmarks.html format is fairly well supported by lots of software (incl. the browser that you're using, probably).

Just looking from where I stand, in Tor Browser (patched version of Firefox):

- Hamburger menu

- Bookmarks

- Manage bookmarks (Or hit Ctrl + Shift + O)

There are backup, restore, import, and export options. There is also a button labelled "Organize" where I can create folders and move the bookmarks into them.

I think that hits all 6 points.

Unsurprisingly I'm doing the same, and the file is also named 'links.txt'. Using tags however, instead of categorising. Problem is, I almost never get to read them, an issue that this app is trying to alleviate.

I always make sure to include the browser user profile directory in my file-level backups for this reason. Then I can restore bookmarks but also my hundreds of tabs...

Reminds me of that famous HN Dropbox comment lol But whatever works for you :)

Many problems don't need solving!

Agree! Some solutions are for quality of life though

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