Pocket which used to be Read It later earlier, has changed its name, refreshed its app and has gone free for iPad. Pocket which syncs with many services like Twitter, Zite and Flipboard for saving your articles for later reading, is a must-have app for any smartphone or a tablet.
Pocket which started out as a bookmarking site has now morphed into your online history which you want to save and recall. It now has included a way to sift through just the videos and images you have saved.
Pocket’s new features have included integration to services like Evernote and Box and long with a revamped User Interface. Pocket’s iPad app has almost everything you want from such an app. Most importantly the app is free.
Between Zite, Flipboard, Pocket, Twitter, ifttt and Google Reader I have my perfect content sifter/discoverer/saver.
I am still exploring the new app and am spending more time on it than I used to earlier. I would like Facebook to join that party but that’s not what I’m about to complain. My only complaint about Pocket is this :
You can’t swipe your way through and that sucks
As a blogger, I go through several rounds of sifting and reading from several different stores to arrive at the final things I want to blog about. In this process, I discard 80% of what comes into my online space. The 20% which remains usually goes to Pocket. That still is plenty of stuff to read and traverse. That’s where Pocket’s new features come into picture. I can filter through stream like interface or spend more time with its Flipboardish interface.
While browsing with Pocket’s stream like interface, if I am reading an already saved article the only way to go to the next article is to go back, select the next article and read it. That’s one operation too many for someone like me. Most importantly an insult to an iPad.
If I have to go through 300 odd articles that’s 300 more seconds wasted in unnecessary gestures. Why can’t I read through all the articles stored which just the swipe of my finger?
Of course Pocket isn’t alone. Zite has the same problem. Only Flipboard has this feature. Why is that? I hope this isn’t a power user feature.
Download Pocket app for iPad from here.
