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Read-it-later app Pocket is closing down in just a week’s time, so if you’re still using it, now’s the time to switch to a similar app.
As an avid user of Pocket pretty much since it launched in 2007 as Read It Later, I felt a little sad to receive a message in May informing me that it would be shutting down on July 8.
I used to get end-of-year emails from the startup congratulating me for being in the “top 5%” of Pocket readers over the previous 12 months. Truth be told, I was in the top 5% of savers, not readers, as I would save endless articles on a daily basis but only ever get around to reading a handful of them. The good thing, though, was that every time I opened the app, I knew there would be something interesting waiting for me.
But having received the news that the Pocket app will stop working on my phone from next week, I recently did a quick search for a read-it-later alternative.
It turns out that there are plenty of options out there, among them Raindrop, Matter, PaperSpan, Plinky (Apple devices only), DoubleMemory (Apple devices only), Recall, and Wallabag. However, I’ve switched to one that launched in 2008, just a year after Pocket’s arrival: Instapaper.
As with Pocket, Instapaper lets you save articles in a single tap or click, allowing you to read them later (or never read) at a time of your choosing, online or offline.
Having used it for a few weeks now (it’s already bursting with unread articles!), I can recommend Instapaper as an excellent replacement for Pocket. It’s similar to Pocket in many ways, which flattens the learning curve, and functions just as smoothly, too.
You can even import all of your Pocket articles to Instapaper, though I won’t be doing that as 1- it’ll probably take days, and 2- I’ll never read them. It kind of feels good to start afresh with Instapaper, and my phone will get a massive chunk of storage back, too.
Available for both iOS and Android, Instapaper is easy to set up and sync across all of your devices, including your phone and PC.
The free version will suit a lot of you, no doubt, but a paid version ($5.99 per month or $59.99 per year) offers full text search, a permanent archive, unlimited notes, and text-to-speech playlists for easy listening.
