Read It Later

In case you missed them, here are the latest applications with Read It Later support.

For a full list of all supported apps see the Read It Later App Directory.

Browser Apps

Postponer - Chrome Extension
Simple Read It Later extension for Google Chrome.

Mobile Apps

AddToReadingList - Blackberry App
Addtoreadinglist is a Blackberry browser integrated client for the ReadItLater service.

Bulletin - Android App
Google Reader and news client for your Android phone.

iPhone Apps

ReadWriteWeb
Official app from ReadWriteWeb

Tweetings
Twitter app

Push News
Breaking news updates delivered via push

RSS-Flash-G
Fully featured Google Reader client

Thank you everyone for all of the feedback since the 2.0 release.

Firefox Extension Version 2.0.2

I just pushed out version 2.0.2 of the Firefox extension. This new version brings back a few old features from 0.9 in addition to important bug fixes:

• ‘X days ago’ is available as an option in the list view again.
• Right click to save a page for later is back.
• Users with master passwords can now opt to save their password differently so they can skip the prompt at startup.
• Fixed text-view encoding issues with non-english character sets.
• Fixed url not appearing in status bar on compact list view

iPhone Version 2.0.1

I submitted this version shortly after 2.0.0 was approved and it contains a number minor bug and crash fixes.  I expect it to be available soon.

Have an awesome holiday weekend!

I just pushed out an update to the text view that fixes a number of encoding issues.  Any content with Cyrillic, Hebrew, Farsi, Japanese, Chinese, or European characters that previously appeared garbled should be fixed.

For future content, you do not need to do anything, it will just work.  For already downloaded articles, you can redownload the content and it will replace it with the corrected encoding.

Note: A fix for the Firefox extension requires a new update, which I’m working on getting out soon.  In the meantime, you can access the fixed text view through the website at http://readitlaterlist.com/unread/.

Thank you to everyone who have sent in text view reports, they’ve been incredibly helpful.

Read It Later 2.0 is now available: everywhere.

Every aspect of RIL has been updated.  This includes the web version, iPhone app, and Firefox extension.

New Look

The first thing you’ll notice is that Read It Later has been redesigned.  2.0 packs a lot more features than it’s predecessor, yet it’s interface is cleaner and less cluttered.  The redesign had 3 main goals:

1. Be smarter. Do more automatically for the user.  Don’t ask a user to click a button, click it for them.
2. Focus on readability. Each function or button should always be just under your finger when you need it, but until then, keep it out of the way.
3. Consistency.  Every part of the service should have the same unified look and feel.

Position Sync

Read It Later now syncs your position in every article between all of your devices.  This means you can start reading an article on your computer, get up, grab your phone, and pick up exactly where you left off.

Tagging

Tagging has been supported in the Firefox version of RIL for over a year.  In 2.0, tagging has not only been made easier and more useful in Firefox, but it is now supported directly in the iPhone app too.

This makes categorizing your items into groups and folders a snap.

iPhone Updates

Downloading and Syncing

Read It Later is a lot smarter about how it manages your reading.  Whenever you open an article from your list, you will always be presented with the article itself, not options to choose how you want to view it.  If RIL has an offline copy, it will display that, if not, you’ll get the live version directly from the web.

The new offline downloading engine runs smoothly in the background and it’s progress is represented clearly by a progress bar in the top status bar.  Each item in your list is shaded to indicate if an item is ready to be viewed offline.  White means it’s been downloaded, dark means it hasn’t.

Text Mode

While reading you can now turn the text view on or off with a single tap.

This when combined with the new ‘Read It Now’ link option, means you can browse through any number of pages, all in text view, without ever having to download/view the web view first.

Faster

You’ll notice that every interaction with the app is faster, smoother, and more responsive.  2.0 shares zero code with it’s 1.3 predecessor.  It packs way more features into the app, yet the 2.0 codebase is actually smaller than 1.3.

Editing and Tagging

You can now manage your list directly on your phone.  You can edit titles and organize your list using tags.

You can access a tag directory to easily find all of your pages on a specific topic.

Swipe Menu

Tweetie (a Twitter iPhone app), popularized this and ever since I used it the first time, I keep trying the same action in every app I use, it’s just that intuitive.

You can now swipe any item in your list to get a quick action menu.  Without opening the article, you can edit, manually download, remove, or even share your item.

Read Archive

The read archive is now completely searchable and sortable.

Additionally you can now permanently delete items from your archive directly from the app.

Firefox Updates

Faster, More Compatible

The entire app was rebuilt from scratch and is a lean machine compared to the old version.  Clicking through even long reading lists is now faster and more responsive.

Your items are no longer stored in Firefox’s bookmarks.  This solves almost all major bugs with the app alone.  As a result, other add-ons are now less likely to interfere with RIL.  (Issues with Weave and Foxmarks most notably)

Text View

With a single click you can convert any article to an optimized text only view.  This extracts the articles contents, removing images and extraneous layout content and presents it in a clean, consistent way that’s incredibly easy to read.

Downloading

The offline downloading engine has been rewritten.  It now runs faster and more importantly, is more accurate at capturing a website in it’s entirety.

Read It Later also manages your offline cache in a more intelligent way.  You no longer have to enable Firefox to ‘Work Offline’.  If you try to access a page from your list and have no connection (or the connection dies mid way), RIL will step in and serve you the offline version.

Editing & Tags

You can now directly edit your items inline.  While browsing your list, simply click the edit icon and you can instantly modify an item’s title and add tags to help categorize your list.

If you use tags, you can now browse your tags in the tag directory.  This helps manage your tags and items like folders, making it easy to find your items on a specific topic.

The 2.0 Launch

In all honesty, I had expected Apple’s review process to take longer.  2.0 was approved in record time, 2 days before even my earliest expectations.  As a result, you’ll see continued improvements and updates over the coming week.

The Next Step

After I tie off the remaining 2.0 todos, I will begin work on something I’ve been sketching out and planning for many months.  It’s a new extension to the entire Read It Later platform and if I can pull it off, it’s going to rock.  Really hard.

Stay tuned.

It has been a long time coming, but 2.0 is finally in sight.

The new iPhone app was submitted to Apple early this week, the 4th public beta of the Firefox extension (get it here) went out last night, and I am spending the rest of the week applying the new styles to the Firefox extension and website in preparation for the launch.

Once the iPhone app goes live, the rest will follow.

If you are a Firefox user and use a custom theme, Personas, or Linux, I could use some beta testers for the theme refresh, email me at RIL@ideashower.com, thanks!

Thanks to AddThis support, you can now save pages to your list directly from over 500,000 websites.

On any site that uses the popular sharing widget (example to the right), you’ll now find Read It Later listed as an option.  Simply select Read It Later and it’ll drop the item into your reading list.  The next time you share a page, RIL will be listed at the top of your options.

The widget is customizable and can be added to any site.  For more, check out AddThis.

Reeder, a clean and simple Google Reader client for the iPhone now supports saving to Read It Later.

Reeder syncs with your Google Reader account and pulls in your feeds for easy consumption on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

For more, check out a more in-depth review of Reeder on MacStories.

To save to Read It Later after installing Reeder, open an article you want to save for later, tap the share icon and select ‘Read It Later’ from the share menu.

Bulletin makes use of Read It Later’s Open API that lets any developer make Read It Later applications.

The ability to save links to Read It Later has been added to Bulletin, a Google Reader client for the iPhone.

Bulletin’s top features are:

• Two way sync allows you to view up to 1,000 unread items on your device
• Star, share and like items individually from the detail view
• Create and share notes, either by themselves or linked to a news item
• Simple offline browsing for viewing items in areas without internet access
• Built in web browser to view original links without having to leave the app
• Share links via Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Read It Later and email

To enable Read It Later after installing Bulletin, open the Settings app, tap Bulletin and switch ‘Enable Read It Later’ to on.

Bulletin makes use of Read It Later’s Open API that lets any developer make Read It Later applications.

Developer Shalom Craimer has created a simple Read It Later extension for Chrome.

The extension add the Read It Later checkmark to Chrome’s location bar.  (Similar to how it is seen in the Firefox extension.)  This makes adding/marking pages just as fast as it’s Firefox counterpart.

The project is also being hosted on Google Code so that others can contribute to it.

If Google Chrome is your browser of choice, and you’ve been using the Read It Later bookmarklets, you might want to give ChromeRIL a try!  Note: You will need the latest developer build of Chrome to use extensions.

ChromeRIL makes use of Read It Later’s Open API that lets any developer make Read It Later applications.

As of today, I am taking on Read It Later full time.  You can read more about it here:

Idea Shower: Going All In

Thank you all for your support over the last two years and for making this dream even remotely possible.