Instapaper

The search for evidence of an upcoming iPad Mini has become worthy of a plot line for one of those forensic investigation shows that make forensic investigation seem a lot more sexy than it surely is.

The latest lead in the case of an Apple slate with a smaller form factor comes in the form of some interesting entries in Instapaper's logs that show devices calling themselves "iPad2,5" and "iPad2,6" accessed the app recently. The most recent 16GB iPad2 now on the market identifies as iPad2,4 when the device interacts with an app.

Marco Arment, developer of the text reader and bookmarking app, speculates that the previously unseen device identifiers could be new GSM or CDMA versions of iPad2,4, but more likely they're the rumored smaller iPad that could be based on the second-generation iPad.… Read more

Apple's App Store might be causing some trouble for application users.

Marco Arment, the creator of Instapaper, reported yesterday that he was "deluged" earlier this week by users who had downloaded Instapaper 4.2.3 and found that upon opening it, the application "crashed immediately." The issue even occurred after users removed the application from their devices and reinstalled it with a clean version.

After inspecting the issue, Arment found that the problem was due to what he said was a corrupt update Apple distributed through its App Store. According to Arment, the update he … Read more

When you're on the go, it might not always make sense to dive into that lengthy article or start watching that 6-minute video, all on your mobile device. That's when a short-term bookmarking app comes in handy.

A bookmarker lets you put lengthy articles or videos away with just a couple of taps, so you can easily queue them up for reading and watching later, from any of your devices, including your desktop. On Android, the longtime fan favorite has been Pocket (formerly Read It Later). But with iOS-darling Instapaper entering the fold, the stage has been set … Read more

While fanboys everywhere are basking in the glow of hundreds of new Mac and iOS features, executives at a number of app makers are no doubt cursing the fact that, with some of those features, Apple just ran them over and left them for dead.

Take Instapaper, for example. For some time, the app has given Mac, iPhone, and iPad users the ability to save Web pages they want to read later, when they're offline. But today, at its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote in San Francisco, Apple unveiled its Offline Reading List feature for both the Mac and iOS … Read more

To the delight of many an avid reader, fan-favorite iOS bookmarking app Instapaper has finally made its way to the Android platform. Built by mobile-app developer Mobelux, the official Instapaper app brings its dead-simple interface and monochromatic design to a swath of new users.

If you're not familiar with Instapaper, it's a tool that lets you quickly and easily save articles for reading later. So, if you don't have time to dive into that lengthy blog post or interview, you can simply use Instapaper to create a short-term (or long-term) bookmark, and easily pull it up at … Read more

If you build it, they will come. And in droves.

In the world of top-notch iPad apps, that certainly seems to be the case, and this week the new iPad magazine Zite has been one of the hottest things around.

In this space, evolutionary change comes fast. And to many, Zite is already being seen as the next step past what applications like Flipboard have been able to do. Flipboard became Apple's top iPad app of 2010 because it gives users a lovely presentation of personalized news based on their Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as other custom-selected … Read more

There are a lot of advantages to the iPad as an e-reader, chief among them its capability to be a true multiformat product supporting Kindle, ePubs, PDFs, and others.

One little difficulty remains: finding ways to get free books.

Sure, Apple and others don't exactly want you to stock up on free literature if they can help it, especially in the case of books that aren't public domain. Still, we have to try, don't we? Here are the best (legal) ways not to pay.

iPhone developers have often struggled to make sense of Apple's iPhone app store approval process. A recent rejection of Instapaper Pro ($9.99 from iTunes)--a tool that saves Web pages for reading later--is just as baffling. The app has already been available in the store as both a free (iTunes link) and a paid app, but the latest 1.4 version was denied by Apple.

According to the author of the app, Marco Arment, Instapaper Pro 1.4 was rejected because of the "middle icon" in the graphic below.

Arment writes on his Web site that … Read more