Version 2.4 for iOS – Login Support, Tweet Attribution, and More

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Version 2.4 of Read It Later for iOS has been approved and should be appearing in the app store shortly.

Login Support

One long-standing issue with Read It Later has been accessing content behind a subscription or login wall.  Many users are subscribers to sites like the Wall Street Journal, ESPN Insider, and Harpers.  However, it was a messy ordeal to provide RIL access to these users’ accounts.  Without a standardized way to access each site and without APIs, it was difficult to create a solution that wasn’t overly complicated or inconsistent to the user.  I held off on implementing this until I settled on an ideal solution.  This solution has finally materialized in 2.4.

The new solution is simple and elegant.  To manage your site accounts and subscriptions, open the new account manager in the options screen.  Then, simply select the sites you have accounts for, enter your account information and voilà, you’ll be able to access your content in Read It Later, even offline.  There are no limits to where/how you can save your content.  You can continue to save with the bookmarklet, extensions, and through third-party Twitter or news apps.

Tweet Attribution

Note this feature is in Read It Later Pro only

Links saved from Twitter will now display the original tweet that contained the link and give you the ability to retweet it directly.  This not only allows you to remember where/why you saved a link, but allows you to respond to and/or give credit to the original poster after reading!

This will work on new links saved after updating to 2.4.  For the tweet to be saved with your link, the Twitter client you used to save the link with needs to support this new feature.  Three Twitter apps already support this feature (Echofon, SimplyTweet, and Gravity) and more are on the way.  If you use another Twitter client and would like this feature, I recommend you suggest it the app’s developers. 

(Twitter Client Developers: see the new ‘ref_id’ parameter in the #add and #send APIs)

#Longreads

The #longreads Twitter hash tag is a fantastic way to discover the best longform content on the web.  The tag forms a feed of longform content posted by readers and publications that are recognizing the trend.  This feed is grazed over and curated by three great services that all support Read It Later:

Longform.org – Posts new and classic non-fiction articles, curated from across the web and separated into a number of categories.

LongReads.com – A curated feed of longform content, updated daily.

Byliner – A new discovery and discussion site for readers who enjoy longform articles and short form books that is launching at the end of the month.

Now, when sharing an article on Twitter that is 1500 words or more, Read It Later will suggest adding the #longreads hash tag to your post.  If you read a great longform article, I encourage you to share it with the rest of us by using the #longreads hash tag.

Bug Fixes

Version 2.4 also fixes a number of important issues in the previous release.

Fixed: Performance/Lag Issue – a bug in the Article View caused a major performance degradation after viewing a few articles.  This has been fixed for good.

Fixed: Digest Recategorization Issue – a bug in Digest caused some topics to appear empty after recategorizing an item.

Fixed: Evernote/Email Article View Encoding – articles in some non-english languages would appear incorrectly when sharing to Evernote or emailing the full Article View

Fixed: Incomplete Web Views After Update – Please see this page for a description of the issue.

Published by Nate