It’s exhausting to maintain up with every little thing you come throughout on the net, reminiscent of an article you don’t have time to learn in the mean time or a video you’d prefer to run once more later. Years in the past, I began getting the higher of this concern with Pocket, a well known app that means that you can bookmark an article to a separate server after which retrieve it to learn at your leisure. Since then, a variety of comparable providers have appeared, providing quite a lot of options — and quite a lot of costs.
What follows is an outline of Pocket and a number of the obtainable apps. All of them (with one exception) provide free variations and sync throughout a variety of units, together with net browsers, Android units, and iPhones.
Pocket has developed a properly designed interface with plenty of choices that allow you to kind your articles from latest or oldest, select favorites, show them in listing or grid format, and archive those you need to hold or arrange them through tags. Its homescreen exhibits you your most up-to-date saves together with its personal listing of “Pocket-Worthy Reads.” You may share your articles through social media or advocate them throughout the app for others to search out. There’s a set of curated reads; extensions for all kinds of browsers, together with Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari; and apps for Android and iOS units.
Pocket is now “a part of the Firefox household,” and as of June eleventh, 2023, Pocket customers had been notified that they wanted to transition to Mozilla accounts. Nonetheless, for those who use Pocket and have already got a Firefox account or don’t thoughts creating one, you possibly can merely convert the account and proceed with Pocket as earlier than.
Paid model: The Premium model ($4.99 a month or $44.99 a yr) provides a everlasting library of every little thing you’ve saved (in case it disappears from the online) in addition to full-text search and different options.
Like Pocket, Instapaper began out as a easy net add-on and has gone by a number of iterations (and house owners); at the moment, it’s a part of an unbiased firm known as Instapaper Holdings. The online app has a pleasant and easy UI; whereas there isn’t a grid view, you possibly can flip thumbnails on and off. It provides (and syncs throughout) net browsers (utilizing a Chrome extension, Safari extension, Firefox extension, or bookmarklet), iOS, Android, and Kindle. A free account permits you to save an infinite variety of articles, movies, and different content material. You too can spotlight textual content within the articles you’ve saved, create as much as 5 notes a month, and edit the title, hyperlink, or abstract of every article.
Paid model: The Premium model ($5.99 a month or $59.99 a yr) provides full-text seek for your saved paperwork, limitless notes, a everlasting archive, and text-to-speech.
Raindrop might not have the simplicity of Instapaper, nevertheless it has a load of options that may very well be useful, particularly for those who’re critical about your data collections. (And it’s one of many favorites of Verge editor-at-large David Pierce.) The online model permits you to view your articles in quite a lot of codecs, together with an attention-grabbing one known as Moodboard. Like a lot of the others listed right here, the free model of Raindrop provides an infinite variety of bookmark saves on an infinite variety of units; these embody apps for Macs, iOS units, Android units, Linux units, and extensions for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge browsers. You may share with others and edit titles, tags, and descriptions.
Paid model: The Professional model ($3 a month or $28 a yr) provides AI solutions, full-text search, cloud backup, and a everlasting library of all of your bookmarked websites, amongst different options.
PaperSpan is an old school, easy app that’s fantastic if you would like a extremely plain bookmarking service — and it guarantees no adverts and no monitoring, which is a plus. You may create separate folders in your saved bookmarks, however that’s about it; there are cell apps for iOS and Android and extensions for Chrome and Firefox. Not like different providers listed right here, there are not any good graphics, highlighting, or alternative between lists and grids. However for those who simply save articles so as to have the ability to simply learn them and don’t care about all the flowery add-ons that the opposite choices provide, that is for you.
Matter is at the moment solely obtainable for iOS units and the online, with extensions for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox browsers. The free model means that you can do quite a lot of read-it-later duties, together with highlighting, including notes, and listening to an audio studying of the article; the homepage provides solutions as to what you would possibly prefer to learn subsequent. The iOS app provides considerably greater than the online model, permitting you to set a studying aim and add your Gmail tackle to tug your newsletters into the app. You too can sync highlights to note-taking apps reminiscent of Notion or Obsidian or ship articles to your Kindle.
Paid model: Matter Premium prices $14.99 a month or $79.99 a yr and provides HD audio in a extra pure voice, AI transcription of podcasts and YouTube movies, and integrations with different providers.
Readwise’s Reader, which helps you to save all kinds of content material sorts, together with YouTube movies (and their transcriptions), is the one app listed right here that’s for-pay solely. The Verge’s David Pierce not too long ago beneficial it, and I need to say, it’s intriguing. Reader provides a bar to the highest of your browser that permits you to overlay notes, tags, and extra, on to the unique article as you’re studying it. A checkmark on the extension icon exhibits it’s lively; uncheck it, and the markups disappear out of your authentic article however not from the copy that’s been saved to Reader. You might be additionally supplied with a private e mail tackle that means that you can ahead newsletters and different inbox-cluttering emails on to Reader. I solely want there have been some form of primary free model.
Paid model: You get a one-month free trial (maybe two, for those who ask for it). After that, it’s essential to subscribe to each Readwise and Reader for $12.99 a month or $119.88 a yr.
Replace, October twenty ninth, 2024: This text was initially revealed on February twenty fourth, 2022; entries have been up to date, new apps have been added, and Omnivore has been eliminated.