Pocket, the revamped version of the former Read it Later, is highly recommended as a go-to service for saving articles, videos, and images across mobile platforms and web browsers. Gone are the premium apps – all are now free across iOS and Android.
Pocket has deep integration across over 300 other apps, such as Twitter, Reeder (an excellent Google Reader app), Pulse, and Flipboard. This means that when using one of these apps users simply need to enter their Pocket credentials to enable fast saving of content into their account.
The new Pocket app has a very friendly redesign, with minimalist icons for deleting a story or saving it after it has been read. New entries can also be tagged for those who want to categorize their future reading.
With the redesign, Pocket is now a much stronger alternative to Instapaper. The premium version of Instapaper still costs $4.99, with other premium services available for additional fees. The Pocket interface also has some more splash, organizing the articles in an easy-to-scroll format. Search by tags or aggregate by articles, videos, and images.
Much like most eReaders, the brightness and font can be adjusted for optimal reading. Share an article to several other services, such as Evernote or social networks (Instapaper is not among them, of course).
Integrating Pocket is also a better experience by adding the browser extensions available for Google Chrome and Firefox. With a few steps there is also an extension for mobile Safari on the iPhone. This will be especially useful for those who often come across articles on their iPhone that they would rather read at a later time due to being on the go. I have also found it makes for a fast, simple method for saving other content like videos or images that I would rather watch at a different time or want to save. Often simply bookmarking all these items on Safari can leave the bookmarks clogged and difficult to sort through later.
Pocket has positioned itself to be the premier app for saving content for later viewing. It has a strong feature set that creates some much-needed energy to the reading space.
