Text-View Now Apart of Site/API, Syncs Your Place in Article to All Devices

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Happy to announce two major upgrades to the Read It Later Service.  The text-only view which was previously only available on the iPhone app is now available to all, online at http://getpocket.com

What is even cooler is that your place in the article will be synced to your other Read It Later devices/installs.  This means you can start reading an article on your computer, get up, grab your phone, and continue exactly where you left off.

The final kicker: The text view has been added to the Read It Later Open API.  This means any developer can simply send a url to the API and it will spit back the cleaned, text-only view.

The Text View Online

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To access the text view online, open your reading list at http://getpocket.com/unread.  You will now see a link to the text only view next to the red checkmark.

This view is available anywhere you have access to the internet, on your computer or on your phone.

While reading you can set the display to your liking with options for text size, font, color, alignment and margin.

Saved Positions

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As you read an article, your position will be saved as you move along.  So without fear, you can close it and come back to it whenever you have time without losing your place.

More importantly, this position will be synced to any other RIL client so no matter where you are doing your reading, you’ll always be able to pick up where you left off.

The synced positions will be coming in version 1.4 of the iPhone app (after it’s approved) and to RIL for Firefox 2.0 (which is coming in the near future).

API

Now the bar for making your own Read It Later applications is even lower.  With just a few calls to the RIL API you can have a fully functional application that syncs reading lists, text for offline reading, and current read positions.

If you haven’t already checked out the RIL API, get started now.

The Future

I’m working on trying to make RIL an absolutely robust platform for saving pages to read later.  These two features are key steps in rounding out the full future set of Read It Later.

These additions are all part of prep for the upcoming version 2.0 of the Firefox extension which will level the gap between features found in the iPhone app and current FF extension.

If you experience any problems with the new text view or have any feedback, you know they are always welcome: Read It Later Support

Thanks!

Published by Nate