Mozilla has announced today that its read-it-later service Pocket will be retiring its Mac app this month. Users are encouraged to install the iOS app on their Mac or use the web going forward. Here’s when and why Mozilla is shutting it down.
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Mozilla’s popular read-it-later app and service Pocket is out with a big update for its iOS app. The release comes with an all-new design that brings a fresh experience for Home, “My Lists” evolving to “Saves,” improved navigation, and more.
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Pocket has been a long-time favorite app to save articles, websites, videos, and more to check out later. The service now competes with built-in features like Apple’s Reading List, and today Pocket is getting a major update with a focus on one-tap listening and a fresh coat of paint.
Pocket, the popular read-it-later bookmarking service, has been acquired by Firefox developer Mozilla, according to Recode. Pocket has client apps on the iPhone, iPad, and even the Mac including both a browser extension and dedicated reader app.
We’ve already rounded up several apps this week that have been updated with iOS 9 support and that rollout continues tonight to a pair of popular apps. This evening, both Pocket and Hulu for iOS have been updated with support for the latest version of Apple’s operating system. Pocket has been updated to version 6.0.1, while Hulu has been updated to 4.6.1.
Pocket is one of the most popular read-it-later apps available on iOS, and the service is about to get better (or perhaps worse depending on your viewpoint), with the public launch of recommendations. The feature has been tested in beta for some time, and is now officially out in the wild and will be available to users on iOS, Android and on the web. Pocket describes it as “high-quality content without the noise”.
Recommendations takes the absolute best content being saved across Pocket and tailors it to your own saving and reading habits. The result is a feed that’s completely unique and personalized to you, and is filled with the most interesting articles and videos you might have missed otherwise.
Instead of being a collation of the most viewed web pages from the web, recommendations are based on how popular stories are with people with your interests. Since they’re already curated by humans, the company hopes that helps tune out the noise. For instance, if you happen to save a lot of technology articles to read later in Pocket, you’ll be served up tech-based recommendations. What’s more, if you find a recommendation you don’t like, just press the ‘X’ and remove it from your feed.
Recommendations are currently available in English only currently, but the company states that it is working on a wider roll out in more languages. You can download Pocket 6.0 for iPhone and iPad from the App Store for free.
Pocket, the popular app that allows users to save articles and read them later, has received an update that adds another way to consume saved articles. Announced in a blog post, Pocket for iOS now supports Listen, the company’s popular text-to-speech feature that was previously available only on Android.
Listen is a way for users to consume their news hands-free. The feature offers the ability to start listening from anywhere in the article, skip portions you aren’t interested in, and adjust the reading speed to be either faster or slower. Perhaps most notably, Listen is available in all languages.
Today, we’re excited to bring Listen, our Text-to-Speech feature, to iOS. It’s the hands-free way of returning to everything you’ve saved in Pocket. You can start listening from anywhere in the article, skip paragraphs with ease, and adjust the reading speed for when you want to fly through an article or let it slowly soak in. Plus, it has automatic language detection, making Listen available in all languages.
To access Listen, simply open up an article, tap the three dots in the lower right corner, and choose the Listen option. Download the latest version of Pocket for iOS from the App Store now.
Predictions that larger-screened iPhones would cannibalise iPad usage look to be confirmed by some stats from the Pocket app that allows you to save webpages, videos and other content for reading later.
Pocket reported in a blog post today that while 55% of owners of the iPhone 5s viewed content on their phone rather than iPad, the number leapt to 72% for the iPhone 6 and 80% for the iPhone 6 Plus …
Outread is a new speed reader app for the iPhone that helps you read faster by highlighting short sections of text. Focusing on the highlighted section helps you efficiently and quickly move through the text. This differs from most speed reader apps in that they use a technique called Rapid Serial Visual Presentation, which presents one word at a time.
Both of these speed reading techniques force the reader to stop reading out loud inside their head (subvocalization), which is what slows us down when we are reading. Generally a reader’s average reading speed is two hundred words per minute, but Outread supports reading speeds up to one thousand words per minute and a marker size of one hundred characters.
Under the app’s settings, you can adjust the Reading Speed (how many words go by per minute), Marker Size (how many characters are highlighted), and the size of the text. You can also enable a dark theme and see a preview of the different fonts that are available. The color of the highlighter is not customizable. Because of this, I found that it took me a while to find the highlighter when using the app’s dark theme.
Outread also has a feature that allows you to import text or URL’s from your clipboard. While it doesn’t automatically detect the clipboard’s contents when you launch the app, the function is only a tap away.
You are also able to install a “Read In Outread” bookmark which will save articles from Safari to the app’s reading list. When you save the articles to Outread, it downloads them for offline viewing so you can read them without an internet connection, which is perfect for use while traveling. If you use Pocket, Readability, or have an Instapaper subscription you are able to sign into these accounts in Outread and see your offline lists.
Outread does not support importing Microsoft Word documents, Pages files, or PDF files, which is inconvenient when it comes to reading papers and articles for school. Hopefully this functionality will be added in a future update. For now, copying the text from those documents and importing it via the clipboard is a helpful workaround.
I have been using Outread for reading the news and articles for school. Compared to other speed reader apps that use rapid serial visualization presentation, I find that it takes a bit of getting used to the animation when it scrolls down the page. If you want to try an app that can help you get through your reading list much faster, I recommend giving it a try. Outread is available in the App Store for $2.99.
Velocity is a new speed reader app for your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad that helps you read faster by presenting one word at a time using a technique called Rapid Serial Visual Presentation. Studies have shown that using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation helps increase reader’s reading speed because it forces the reader to stop reading out loud inside their head (subvocalization), and suppresses the tendency for eyes to backtrack the line while reading and searching for the end of the sentence. Generally a reader’s average reading speed is two hundred words per minute, but Velocity supports reading speeds up to one thousand words per minute.
ReadQuick, the speed-reading app for iPad, has been updated to version 1.5 today. The new version brings the app to the iPhone and iPod touch.
For those who aren’t familiar, ReadQuick is an app that presents a new way to read web articles. Rather than present you the entire article as one page, ReadQuick shows you the entire article one word at a time. That may sound inconvenient, but it turns out it’s actually much nicer than it sounds. Keep reading for our full review of the brand new iPhone version.
On top of the recent announcement that it will be bringing sponsored posts, aka advertisements, to its mobile apps, Tumblr today released an updated iOS app that includes new sharing features, the ability to save content for later reading, new templates for sharing posts through email, and much more.
Other enhancements include animated GIFs while scrolling, an alphabetized and searchable Following list, and support for sharing directly to Twitter and Facebook. A full list of what’s new in version 3.3.1 of the universal iOS app is below:
Now you can do more than just reblog when you find something you love.
– Share posts via Twitter, Facebook, and more
– Save stuff for later using Instapaper and Pocket
– Email an entire post with our beautiful new template
– Fling a photo up or down to close it!
– GIFs animate while you scroll*
– Following list is now alphabetized and searchable
*iPad 2, 3 and 4, iPad Mini, iPod Touch 5th Generation, iPhone 4S and 5 only
