Instapaper Finally Makes Its Android Debut, And It’s Almost Amazing

http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/04/instapaper-finally-makes-its-android-debut-and-its-almost-amazing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

by speg • 14 years ago

82 47 14 years ago

techcrunch.com

CrazedGeek• 14 years ago

Meh. Pocket (née Read It Later) pretty much already filled Instapaper's uses for me, and it's free. Too little too late, IMHO.

Zikes• 14 years ago

I am also a Pocket user, and find it to be an adequate analog for Instapaper.

shawnc2• 14 years ago

Interesting to me that you both don't really seem to love Pocket - you're just happy it almost does what Instapaper does, for free.

What's interesting about it, is the things people will decide to go without, due to something being free - when really the price difference of Free or $5 is fairly negligible.

( I don't use either service... merely an observation )

huggyface2• 14 years ago

This is likely true: there are a number of Instapaper similes that are available now, many gratis (if your time/screen space are free, though that is a different conversation).

I hope that we don't see a "this confirms all my suspicions about Android" type of post in the coming months. The market is nothing like it was when Instapaper first hit it big on iOS (during a period where some of the biggest yielding apps were "Where's my car" and flashlight type products).

myko4• 14 years ago

To be fair to Pocket it would be better to say Instapaper is a simile of it, as Read-It-Later (Pocket's original name) was first.

edit: Read-It-Later was a web service initially. The idea behind it is the same as Instapaper. Instapaper released a mobile app before Read-It-Later (though Read-It-Later was around as early as 2007).

Tyrannosaurs• 14 years ago

Out of interest, what's Pocket's business model?

mtgx• 14 years ago

This was Marco and other iOS developers' mistake. If they wait too long to come to Android, there will be established competitors on the platform, and instead of being considered a market leader, they might even have to play catch-up with those already established on Android.

This is the same reason why even Microsoft has decided to make Office for iOS and Android. They can't just ignore 700 million users (and soon to be much bigger) just because they'd want people to use Windows instead. Windows is a big cash cow for Microsoft, but so is Office (about as big in revenue), and they can't risk losing the Office market to others, and not getting to decide the future format for docs, and other benefits they now get from being the absolute Office leader.

adidar83• 14 years ago

While waiting for Instapaper, I also moved on to Pocket and Readability.

pacomerh• 14 years ago

Same here, he took a bit long so I became a pocket user.

mitchellhislop• 14 years ago

I always loved Instapaper, but the single focus killed it for me. Pocket, which looks just as pretty (if not more so - the colors do add a lot), can also handle other types of media.

I would end up with about 10 videos on Pinboard, a handful of presentations, and a dozen articles by the end of a week. Pocket can handle all those. Instapaper meant I needed other services to fully capture all the media I wanted to deal with.

Easy choice.

minalecs• 14 years ago

agree its just I'm invested in Spool and Pocket and provides better functionality. I see no reason to switch at this point.

ja27• 14 years ago

I liked using Picplz too, and it was free.

baddox• 14 years ago

I'll have to check out Pocket. Do many apps support it? The main reason I use Readability is that many apps I use (like Tweetbot and Alien Blue) support it. Sure, I could always copy and paste the URLs into whatever read-later app I want, but it's so much more convenient to have integration.

MikeKusold• 14 years ago

Using the official Twitter client for Android, I just share the tweet to Pocket and it parses out the link for me. I can't comment on it for iOS, but it works great on Android.

speg• 14 years ago

Instagram, Flipboard, Instapaper. Who's next?

baconner2• 14 years ago

Has Marco commented on this at all? Dont see anything searching a bit... Given his former comments stating basically that he didn't think it was worth doing this is surprising.

achompas• 14 years ago

He addressed it in today's Build & Analyze *(a podcast on 5by5 that he co-hosts with Dan Benjamin):

http://5by5.tv/buildanalyze/80

Very excited to hear his thoughts.

ph33r• 14 years ago

After reading through several comments it's clear that Marco took way to long to release this, and users have found alternatives. I use Evernote. Many people prefer Pocket apparently.

The real shame is that a week from now Marco (a well known Android basher) is going have a blog post up with poor download stats. Deflect the blame, and proceed to explain how he was right all along... that it was not worth the money to have the app created, that Android users don't want to pay for quality apps, it's fragmented, blah blah blah.

lostlogin2• 14 years ago

So given that he didn't release Instapaper early on Android, what should he have done? Stayed away? Given he wasnt on the platform, is not going to it all a better move or not?

esmevane• 14 years ago

I think the tone I'm picking up on is that he should do this: Not make a post complaining about poor Android sales.

There is no "should have done" past-tense about what these people are saying.

It's good that he released the application and I'm sure many people hope it does well, but several have clearly indicated that they believe it's now too late to blame poor sales on anything if not his own hesitancy.

toonse• 14 years ago

Too late for me...I used instapaper religiously but due to not nice Android client I tried Pocket last month. Switched everything to it.

gulbrandr• 14 years ago

Instapaper Finally Makes Its Android Debut, And It’s Almost Amazing

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