For the past few days I have been trying out the Instapaper app for iOS, specifically for the new iPad, or iPad 3. You might be thinking it's a similar app to what "Instagram" that was recently bought by Facebook, Inc. for $1 billion. They are completely different and not related in any fashion, at least what I can find. It can be found on the Apple App Store currently for $3.99.
Instapaper gives you the ability to read webpages and articles you save offline. In my case, I just have the WiFi version of the iPad 3, so it is really nice to be able to read an article when I have the time. I can imagine this is helpful for people who commute to work where cell-phone access is not available, like when you are riding the bus or subway. Do realize that when you save an article, it will only save what is on that page at the time. If the article has multiple pages, it will not save all of them unless you specifically tell it to.
One great example of the usefulness of Instapaper is being able to catch errors in articles and show the proof. One example is from ABC News article "Nine Things You Never Knew About The Fourth of July." It states that on July 4, 1963, General John Pemberton of the Confederacy surrendered in Vicksburg, Mississippi that became known as the turning point in the Civil War that eventually won the war for the North? No I did not make a typo in that sentence. I have provided a screenshot below of part of the article. If you would like the read the whole article, you can find it here.
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Instapaper does allow you to save articles from the built in web browser or from Safari. Instapaper will give you instructions on how to make a bookmark in Safari that will allow you to save articles directly to Instapaper. If you use Chrome for iOS over Safari, it is possible to do the same process, but unfortunately you have to jailbreak your iOS device in order to unlock that capability. I know this because my iPad 3 is jailbroken and have installed a program from the Cydia market to allow Chrome to work with Instapaper.
I can see this app useful for saving blog posts of celebrities or politicians who post something that may be controversial and then try to make things better by deleting them. You will have to record it from either the web browser in Instapaper or from Safari.
You do have the ability to share article with your friends on Twitter and Facebook. There is also a section called "The Feature" that shows the best articles submitted to Instapaper. You can see what your friends are sharing as well.
Instapaper does allow you to archive your articles, but you will have to get a subscription for that. 3 months will cost $2.99, 6 month for $5.99, and 1 year for $11.99. To me, the 3 month package is the better value because if you use that for 1 year, you save a whopping 3 cents. I know that doesn't sound like much, but it's more of an observation. For the fact that you can archive for basically $1 per month, that is very affordable since you won't have to worry about your articles being lost if your iOS device gets lost, stolen, or broken.
So until that day where the entire world is accessible to the Internet, no matter where you are, there will always be a need for offline access. Instapaper is a great way to read something to pass the time or to be used for information preservation.
Do realize that the price of the app or the subscription rates can go up or down at any time. I have absolutely no control on that.
You can find Instapaper on the Apple App Store on iTunes: Instapaper - Marco Arment
Have Fun and Geek Out!
Instapaper Website
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