A $5 App That Justifies Your iPhone Purchase: Instapaper | Hacker News Reader

A $5 App That Justifies Your iPhone Purchase: Instapaper

wired.com

70 pointsxtimesninety71 comments

I usually find that things I bookmark for later consumption, are rarely read. Unless they apply to something technical that I implement and read up on later.

Exactly, if I don't have time to read it now then how come I'm browsing around finding links. And if I do have time to read it now but am choosing not then I will probably continue to choose not to.

The only way for me to read backlogs is to just keep them open in tabs, at some point I get frustrated by having 50+ tabs open and just triage, read & discard.

I do the same thing, but I use Safari which can only restore tabs from the single most previous session. At some point my browser will crash, and then will crash again before I’ve restored the previous session. And then my reading black log will be cleared. I can’t decide if this is a bug or a feature.

I use instapaper for articles I really want to read. The tilt to scroll is amazing. It might be my favorite way to read.

> At some point my browser will crash, and then will crash again before I’ve restored the previous session.

I use Camino so it's happened to me once or twice. I used the history listing to find them again (camino lists both the first and last visits to a given URL, a bunch of URL grouped together with identical last access and first access widely different both from one another and the corresponding last access points to the URLs loaded the last time I launched the browser e.g. after a restart)

That is why I like Opera. You can actually save sessions, and return to them. So you can have more than one session going on at a time. I usually save a session once a month. It's quite interesting seeing what I was into 5-6 years ago.

Not with Instapaper/iPhone combination. When you saving links to read later when you'll be at your computer, you'll probably never come back to them (in most cases "getting to your computer" means "starting working", not "starting reading yesterday's links").

Instapaper gives you your saved links when you have nothing else to do (e.g. commuting), and this makes a huge difference.

The other killer iPhone app is Tweetie, a $3 Twitter client that, if you’re a Twitter user and have multiple accounts, is as indispensable as a needle to a heroin addict.

Oh, Wired. Continuing to destroy your credibility by insisting that a single client among dozens is a killer application if you use a certain website in a certain rare use case.

Yeah, using Twitter is such an incredibly weird rare fringe thing these days. Next you'll tell me that this "web" thing isn't just a fad...

You and your fucking snark. Hacker News is a place with lots of smart people saying smart things. Snark is for when people say something that is obviously stupid and not worth a debate. If you want to disagree with me, do it earnestly, because perhaps this is worth a discussion.

Twitter is the #13 site globally according to Alexa. Does that mean that a Blogger app would be more of a killer app than a Twitter app? What about a MySpace app? MSN? Windows Live? Google? If I told you that the iPhone's killer app was a Google search, wouldn't that sound stupid?

But Wired isn't just saying that. They're saying that Tweetie, one of a hundred Twitter applications, is a killer app and that the other applications aren't. Furthermore, Tweetie is a killer app if you use Twitter with multiple accounts. That is an incredible weird rare fringe thing. I'd bet most Twitter users have a single account.

Now do you want to attempt sarcasm again? Because I'll warn you: Not only do I know more about what I'm arguing than you do, I'm a better snarker than you, and I will tear you to little fucking pieces.

I remember when I joined HN and routinely felt dwarfed by the intellectual discourse here. Now I say something and the response is likely as not bullshit like yours. I feel so goddamn old.

I remember when I joined HN and routinely felt dwarfed by the intellectual discourse here. Now I say something and the response is likely as not bullshit like yours. I feel so goddamn old.

The funny thing is that ubernostrum joined HN just a few weeks after you did.

I know. I don't think it's just a matter of new users. It's a shift in what Hacker News is focusing on. The level of discourse has dropped.

I'm willing to bet that there is a huge overlap for iPhone and Twitter users, and for that subset, Tweetie can most definitely be considered a killer app. I get what you're trying to say with them mentioning a killer app be geared towards the user of a specific site, but really, that could be said about any killer app. The fart app is geared towards iPhone users AND fart sound lovers. iMob is geared towards iPhone users AND mob-style game lovers. All these apps have done wonderfully, and are apps I would consider killer. The point is, an iPhone app is killer because it appeals to a subset of users really really well.

Additionally, I see nothing wrong in them pointing out Tweetie, even though it is one of billions. Design and user interface is a very important layer to take into account, especially with these iPhone apps, and Tweetie's design is very intuitive, in my opinion. Design has much to do with an app being killer as its underlying technology.

Tweetie is good, but it's not a killer app. A killer app's something that annihilates its competition. Tweetie doesn't annihilate anything.

The iPhone is killer, but when Wired is making the argument of "Instapaper justifies your owning an iPhone", it hurts the argument a lot to add "just as much as this Twitter app will". Tweetie is nothing ultraspecial. Instapaper might be. It hurts to compare it to a web site client.

Well, I think a really good Twitter client (which it is) certainly is a killer app for a mobile platform, given how many people now regularly use Twitter. I know, for anecdote's sake, that Tweetie is almost certainly the most-used application on my phone. If you want to belittle Wired or iPhone users or Twitter users (and Lord knows it's trendy to do so), feel free, but do expect to get hit with the occasional bout of sarcasm in response (just as I expect that people who believe in the myth of the Wonderful Hacker News Comment Community will downmod all such comments into oblivion).

As for "discourse", well, I've been active here for a while and lurking for longer, and my first impression was that HN was a site that syndicated TechCrunch articles. Took me a while to realize there was anything other than an echo chamber here, and I'm still not entirely sure about that.

If you want to belittle Wired or iPhone users or Twitter users (and Lord knows it's trendy to do so), feel free, but do expect to get hit with the occasional bout of sarcasm in response

I've already responded to this. Wired implies that Tweetie is a killer app if you use Twitter with multiple accounts. That's an edge case even among Twitter users, and Twitter is not an enormous web site. It's like saying the Facebook app is a killer app because it's gorgeous and provides near-full site functionality right now. It is, and it does, but say I'm writing an article about an app that I'm claiming "justifies" your entire app purchase. It doesn't help me look serious when I go on to say "Oh, also this one Twitter application is just as justifying. Seriously, accessing Twitter like this is as important as being able to store and read articles offline."

just as I expect that people who believe in the myth of the Wonderful Hacker News Comment Community will downmod all such comments into oblivion

It's not the sarcasm that isn't welcome. It's the sarcasm when dealing with subjects worthy of discussion. You know? Here we're talking about something that's provoking a good deal of debate, so your sarcasm is actively harmful to the discourse. If we were talking about some ridiculous subject, then sarcasm is totes coo'.

Shit like this isn't even snarking. It's just you being an asshole. Come on. We're all venerable old men here, we can afford some courtesy.

Tweetie is by far the best twitter client I've used. And 100% worthy of such high and arbitrary accolades.

Its design is brilliant—I am similarly a fan, though I don't Twitter—but my point was that "killer app" means something that "the best twitter client I've ever used" does not.

Tweetdeck syncs with our desktop experience. For people that need to filter the stream to grok it better (read: eventually everyone), Tweetdeck is better.

This reminds me of something Russell Davies spoke about at dConstruct. To paraphrase, TweetDeck is humans solving problems humans have created for themselves.

Communication isn't a human invention.

Twitter is a human invention. Written communication (arguably) is a human invention.

Audio from the talk will be available on http://2009.dconstruct.org/podcast/ soon.

Tweetdeck also filters Facebook, and others soon too, I'd bet. Given enough time, it would work with your email / chats / voicemail / smoke signals etc.

Filtering information is not a new idea at all.

http://www.givemesomethingtoread.com

Instapaper's popular items

As if I have a shortage of things to read. My RSS feeds are neglected, and all are worthy of reading. Get me an app that buys me the time to catch up on my reading-- now that'd be a killer app.

Try this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentatio... http://www.zapreader.com/

I've also used an OS tool called Dictator in the past, until it stopped working on my computer. I read Brother's Karamozov at 2500 wpm! It was something about Russia...

This is fascinating. I feel its bookmarklet will get way more use than my Readability bookmarklet.

I've found instapaper during my morning commute is an app that buys me time to catch up on reading. Works even better if you commute by tube and there is no phone signal to distract you (with email, twitter, etc).

One side note: Instapaper pro is rated “17 and up” for “Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes,” which is an indication of Apple’s bizarre and arbitrary approval and rating policies.

Not a big deal I suppose, but this is perverse to the point of obnoxiousness. This is slanderous, when you think about it.

There are many apps stuck with a 17+ rating due to the app being able to access content from the web which may or may not be kid-safe. It's a policy which is paranoid and inconsistently applied, but it's not entirely arbitrary.

I get that...what irritates me is they don't do the same with Safari. With this logic, one could complain that the alphabet isn't kid safe because you can make naughty words out of it, or that a clock app promotes pot use because it reads 4:20 twice a day. A 17+ rating applied on such general grounds really creates a false impression about the products it's applied to, suggesting they are somehow more likely to expose the user to objectionable content and thus hurting sales.

Read It Later does much the same thing. I use it all the time to bookmark things for later use. It's an addon for Firefox, but works with any browser through bookmarklets.

http://readitlaterlist.com/iphone/

whats the advantage of this over instapaper? FYI: Instapaper came first

I didn't know that, so thanks!

But I find the way that ReadItLater works inside Firefox to work well - the fact that it's an icon on the toolbar, showing me how many unread things I have is kinda nice.

FYI: That's absolutely not true. Read It Later came out 5 months before Instapaper and had offline reading nearly a year before IP.

I've been using a similar (open source) program for my old Palm M500 for years. It's called Plucker.

I feel I must be alone in this after all the Instapaper hype, but I just can't read stuff enjoyably on my iPhone.

yeah, it's convenient but I get eye strain pretty easily. if you happen to have a kindle, hatchet does the same thing for it. it's a much better platform for reading text. it costs $0.15 per use via Amazon's conversion charge though.

http://hatchetapp.com/

I've gone the other direction. I have the latest Kindle but I don't bother using it - I read all my Kindle purchases on the Iphone. It's always with me and I love the screen. I would sell it but I think I have to have one active to purchase items for my account.

Interestingly, the guy who wrote O'Reilly's book "Best iPhone Apps" also picked Instapaper as the absolute best iPhone app (http://endlessyears.com/?p=1373), after reviewing (or, at least, considering) 65,000 apps, and selecting his top 200.

This is the one app that would stop me from ditching the iPhone and going to Android. Anyone know of a comparable app/service for Android?

the only problem i have reading on the ipod touch is my arm kinda gets tired quickly because of the weight (and its awkward to hold it with 2 hands when reading). if only the zune hd had a similar app to instapaper i'm sure it's the next thing i would buy.

I just started using this service and completely love it.

everything i'd like to read is normally already stored here on HN.

I wrote a HTML stripper for my Amiga in 1998! Hardly innovative.

Why am I not surprised that the iPhone's "killer app" is something that lets you circumvent the copyrights and advertising on content sites?

Is there a way to block this app or have it generate just a link instead of a full-text version of the article that lacks all the advertising?

Mr. Murdoch, is that you?

If thats what you think Instapaper is, you've completely missed the point of it. Instapaper saves articles so you can read them later, offline. You know, without having to wait for a large site to load over 3G (or worse, EDGE. Or the lack of wifi, if you have an iPod touch).

It strips content down to plain text, removing any advertising, promotional links, social networking buttons, etc., and it does so without the permission of the originating site. Digg tried to pull something similar when they introduced the Digg toolbar (embedding original content in a frame) and people got hopping mad. But I guess on the iPhone anything goes, since Apple owns the copyright for rounded rectangles.

I think you're missing the point. The people that are likely to use this application for articles are likely the kind of people that either (a) regularly visit your site, (b) are new to your site but presently don't have time to read the content, or (c) the kind of people that would say "tl;dr" and have moved on.

By encouraging use of InstaPaper (or its ilk) with longer articles on your site you may just find that it improves your readership.

Do you have data to prove these claims? My original comment was trying to point out that many "hot application" get hot because they enable theft or copyright circumvention in some way. Publishers continue to grumble about putting their stuff behind paywalls because offering it up for free offers very little protection.

By encouraging use of InstaPaper (or its ilk) with longer articles on your site you may just find that it improves your readership.

Yes, and by allowing users to share MP3's of your songs you may find that over the long run your listenership is improved.

Nonetheless, under current (US?) copyright code, reformatting documents by stripping out 'extraneous' advertising and saving them in a different format for later use is flat-out illegal. This may not make it 'wrong', and certainly does not make the app any less useful, but I think the OP's point stands.

Nonetheless, under current (US?) copyright code, reformatting documents by stripping out 'extraneous' advertising and saving them in a different format for later use is flat-out illegal.

Really? Would you mind pointing out where in the US Code or the DMCA (or whatever else you're referring to) that says this? I'm not as knowledgeable on copyright as I'd like to be; need to start learning more somewhere, and this seems like a good place.

It's possible that 'flat-out illegal' is too strong of a statement, although upon reflection I'll still stand by 'almost certainly illegal'. Here's a law review paper with lots of background and references:

The TiVo Question: Does Skipping Commercials Violate Copyright Law? http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=901062

Please don't mistake my opinion here on what the law is for my feelings on what the law should be. It sounds like a great app. I'd be very happy to proven wrong, and to find that the copyright law regarding such matters is more user friendly than I've been led to believe.

This is wrong. Distributing that stripped-down version (or a non-stripped-down version) would be illegal. But writing a program that lets you do it for personal use is perfectly legal.

Consider ripping your CDs so you can play them on your MP3 player. Legal. Selling those MP3s? Not legal.

Does the Instapaper iPhone app do the stripping, or does Instapaper serve the stripped version? I'd say the former is illegal, and the latter is legal, though it'd be nice if a publisher could opt out and/or provide their own stripped down version that the app would use.

It's possible that I'm wrong, but I'd appreciate if you could point to the legal precedent that establishes this. The general rule is that making a copy of any copyright work is forbidden, unless you have a license or it's fair use.

You are right that ripping a CD (that you own?) to MP3 for personal use is covered as fair use. This was established relatively recently in RIAA vs Diamond Multimedia[1], a case that primarily decided that the Rio was legal because it _wasn't_ a digital music recorder. But it also stated "the Rio's operation is entirely consistent with the Act's main purpose -- the facilitation of personal use" and that "Such copying is paradigmatic noncommercial personal use entirely consistent with the purposes of the Act".

But simply transforming a musical recording into a different format isn't quite a parallel example, as the goal is usually to make a complete copy. I think a closer parallel would be recording a television show with the ads clipped out. While 'time-shifting' is held to be legal (under Sony vs Universal), if you save a version with advertisements removed, you may well have created a derivative work.

I think Tivo is probably a pretty close example. While I don't think there has been a precedent setting case yet, it's probably worth noting that Tivo does not allow its users to automatically skip advertisements in the shows it records, despite the fact that this would be a popular feature with users. They no longer even have a button on the remote to allow the ads to be skipped easily.

For example, a law review article[2] titled "The TiVo Question: Does Skipping Commercials Violate Copyright Law?" reaches this simple conclusion: "Using a DVR to skip television advertisements violates copyright law, and DVR manufacturers should be contributorily liable. By providing a means for television viewers to skip advertisements, DVR manufacturers deny television networks the intended incentive for their creative expression--advertising revenues."

I've only skimmed it, but the article provides a lot of useful background on the relevant arguments and case law.

[1] http://www.virtualrecordings.com/diamond.htm

[2] http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=901062

Um, I don't need your permission to not download something ("advertising, promotional links, social networking buttons, etc.") from your site.

You do need permission to make a derivative work, especially one that directly competes with the original, unlike Google's cached pages.

Think about Instapaper's use case: Offline or slow connection. On iPhones or iPod touches.

There's no point in having a social network button when you can't reach Digg or Reddit to submit or to vote. There's no point in having a blank space for an ad, if the user doesn't have a persistent internet connection that can be used to retrieve the ad to show on your page.

And because this is an iPhone or an iPod touch, the screen space is still limited. This means: Only having the text of the site - the essential content - is the goal for the end user. For the end user, this is very much preferred to displaying the entire webpage and zooming back and forth (while ignoring ugly empty spaces for ads that didn't load). Or maybe your ads are in flash and just won't load at all, because they can't be displayed.

I can't disagree with your right to make money from ads. I can only point out my right to not want to waste bandwidth (which can be expensive if going over the limits with the iPhone, on AT&T at least) in order to display useless content that does't contribute anything to the item I wish to read. And I can ask you to revisit your stance on Instapaper. Because as a consumer of content, presumably someone who you may potentially target, your stance seems irrational.

Sorry, but I don't see where you are getting the idea that you have a 'right to not want to waste bandwidth'. That is your choice, not a right, so if you don't want to waste bandwidth then don't use high bandwidth sites.

While I can certainly see why someone would want to use Instapaper and that it clearly has a lot of benefits for the user, that doesn't change the fact that their app operates in a grey area of copyright infringement.

Just because something is practical does not mean that it is therefore legal.

And content providers have a choice, too. No one is forcing them to put their stuff out on the Internet, in a wide open format, where anyone can just take it.

But ad-supported pages are equivalent to selling newspapers in giant heavy boxes, where you can't just get the newspaper, you have to take all the crap in its box. Well what if you don't want to carry a whole box? What if it would take you 10 times as long to bring the newspaper home by carrying the box? Would you not be tempted to rip open the box and just take the paper? Or, tempted to just go away, and not take the box or the stupid paper? At some point, the obnoxious mechanism outweighs the value of the content.

Instead, there could be a stack of papers on a table, with a cup and a sign "please deposit 50 cents". Some people will take a paper and leave nothing. Others will leave 50 cents. Still others will leave a buck or two, because they want to. You might even see people drop off a new stack of papers for you, and not care if you get the cash. Maybe somebody else sees your stuff (because it's not locked in boxes), and that leads to other opportunities. So maybe it isn't "fair" that some people pay more than others, but this is certainly does not spell doom for the content provider.

...that doesn't change the fact that their app operates in a grey area of copyright infringement.

Like I mentioned earlier: I'm not as informed in copyright law as I would like. Would you mind pointing out to me where this is a grey area? Since I'm personally an American citizen, where - in the US Code, the DMCA, or some other law that we have - is this a grey area?

It's not a grey area. Buying a book and skimming the boring parts is not illegal.

Thats basically what I thought. Perhaps I should have said "Where you think this is this a grey area."

Making a copy of the book without the boring parts is illegal. This is what I think Instapaper does.

It's perfectly legal if you do it for your own personal use.

Instapaper does it for commercial use. If the iPhone app does it client side, then it is probably legal. If it's server side, probably not.

HTTP proxies that modify content are legal. How is this not an HTTP proxy?

Do you know how html works? Normal browser * Have link to content, say blah.html * Download blah.html * Parse blah.html, * extract links to css, js, images, flash ... * Download from extracted links * Display

Instapaper * Have link blah.html * Download blah.html * Don't parse, don't worry about any built-in links * Display

Now realize this has NOTHING to do with a derived work or copyright infringement. I'm merely choosing not to download and display some parts of published content, saving bandwidth which I'm paying for!

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