I've been toying with Read Later applications on Kindle Touch and am trying to find the best tools out there. It is sad to tell you that none of the applications score perfect.
Here's the complete list of things I want for read later apps:
- Can add articles on Chrome with a keyboard shortcut, not clicking bookmarklets
- Can add articles from Google Reader with a keyboard shortcut
- Can add articles from iOS apps like Echofon and Flipboard
- Can add artciels from Android with "Share URL" intent
- Deliver unread articles to my Kindle every day, on preferrably configurable time
- Kindle version should support chapters for each page
- Kindle version should support inline images
Read It Later scores almost perfect on the adding articles side. The bookmarklet works with keyboard shortcut using Chromac extension, and keyboard shortcut with Google Reader using Obvious Interest, supported by Echofon and Flipboard. Android Share intent works nice because it uses "A" with "Add to Read It Later", and share intent is sorted by alphabet - it's a nice hack.
Read It Later does not support sending articles to Kindle, so I did some hack using RSS subscription on Google Reader to send it to Klip.me. It works mostly well, except that neither Read It Later API nor Klip.me document supports inline images. Also, Klip.me does not display URL nor author of the page until the very end of the article, which is a bit annoying when reading a summary list.
Instapaper is also pretty good on the adding side, but for some reason I could not get the bookmarklet to work with keyboard shortcuts. That means I always have to move the mouse over there and click the bookmarklet, which is annoying. However Instachrome extension seems to work and allows configuring keyboard shortcuts. It is good that the bookmarklet natively supports Google Reader (currently selected items are automatically detected), and lots of iOS apps support Instapaper and there's a Share intent app available on Android, although it's mediocre.
Kindle documents generated by Instapaper do not seem to support images either, but it looks sligthly better than the one created by Klip.me. I could use Instascriber to synchronize my Read It Later items over to Instapaper automatically, although it probably means i have to manage unread items in two places.
Readability has a nice Chrome extension that supports keyboard shortcuts. I can't yet see Google Reader integration that works with keyboards and iOS apps support is a bit weak since its subscription service is new. The Kindle documents sent by Readability look the best out of three, and seems to avoid the Kindle Software bug that you can't archive items on the device.
So far, I'm trying to move over to Instapaper, but that requires me to fiddle with lots of input channels to be updated.
UPDATE: I completely switched to Instapaper. The reading app on iPad is much better than that of ReadItLater. The Kindle reading experience is nice but it also doesn't support inline images, and there's the other Kindle software bug (maybe) that does not recognize the beginning of the book correctly. It always opens the first page of the last chapter, instead of the first, when I first open the book or select "Beginning" from Go to menu.
UPDATE 2: Instapaper officially recognizes that there's a software bug in Kindle Touch that it has some issues with Instapaper generated Kindle docs.
Today I switched to Readability's Premium plan since I support their idea of giving back the revenue to the publishers. (Wow I switch apps like every day now) The problem with Readability is it's lack of universal "Add to..." support on iOS and Android applications. And also there's no keyboard shortcut to add from Google Reader. To solve this, I set up two ifttt tasks, to import from Google Reader starred items and Instapaper personalized RSS. So now I just star items on Google Reader, and keep adding articles to Instapaper from Android and iOS apps, and ifttt takes care of syncing articles to Readability, and it now sends me the documents to my Kindle every day.
No offense, but if there's a facebook like button, it'll be much easier for me to share.
Posted by: elliptical reviews | 2011.11.29 at 20:29