One of my favourite apps for many years was Instapaper (Android/iOS). It filled a niche in my digital consumption that few other apps could.
Back when connectivity was scarce, Instapaper spotted a need and offered a great and simple solution. If you wanted to read an interesting article or webpage later, you could save it to Instapaper using a browser extension, and then read it later in the app. The app helpfully downloaded a version of the story for offline reading – often when you didn’t have internet access.
Over the years, I evolved how I used Instapaper. At first, I used its ability to read articles aloud to me while busy with something else – until browsers began to offer that functionality. First came Microsoft Edge, and then Apple’s Safari.
I also used Instapaper as a repository – and a record – of what I read for years. Whenever I needed to refer to an article, I would first search through my saved Instapaper stories and usually find it there quickly.
But over the years, the features I prized in Instapaper slowly became more widely available elsewhere, including the browsers I mentioned, and I eventually stopped using it for good.
So I was thrilled this week to get an email from Instapaper announcing that it is tackling another persistent problem with today’s mobile internet: reading PDFs.
Unfortunately, most documents are formatted as PDFs on a laptop (14in) or desktop (27in) screen before being consumed on a smartphone (about 6in).
(Also, I wish we could move on from the awkward Imperial system of measurement, especially when reading Harry Potter to my son, but so be it.)
If Instapaper can solve this counterintuitive problem of PDFs being created on a big screen for consumption on smaller screens, I’m happy to pay for that.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
