Sneak Peek: New Additions to Read It Later

Reading is an enjoyable experience irrespective of whether you read a book or an article online. It’s the quality of content that counts and not the mode of consumption. You can always read an article from a magazine at a later time, but it’s hard to do so online. Sure, you can use the bookmarking apps to store the links to read later, but isn’t the most elegant solution. That’s what Instapaper and Read It Later are for.

Instapaper recently released a massive and impressive update for iOS devices, while Read It Later has also recently announced a major revamp. Read It Later is an amazing app across all platforms, but when compared to Instapaper, the buzz it gets is far less. It isn’t like one app is less feature rich than the other. Both of them are used by hundreds of thousands, but Instapaper has an influential and vocal fan base.

After the break, let us take a sneak peek at the first batch of changes about to come to the Read It Later web app.

A Brand New Interface

When I said it’s a major revamp to the user interface, I really meant it. From a sleek, minimal design, developers have made the transition to a flamboyant and colorful one. The original, stripping out images to make way for the content idea has been done away in favor a brand new view that comes alive with pictures and excerpts from the articles you’ve saved to your queue.

The new tile view allows news items to stand out and speak for themselves. I do agree that it’s now easier and more enjoyable to find the right content when you want it. It’s particluarly helpful when you are a voracious reader with a ton of links in queue.

However, fans of the classic list view have a toggle button, if they aren’t into this whole, new imagery concept.

Article, Image and Video Filters

Filters to see only articles, videos or images make a cool new addition. I don’t use Read It Later as an offline video playlist, but going forward, I sure will. You can now see all of the videos you have saved in your queue with a single click. Nice, but this feature makes me think Read It Later is heading towards becoming a full blown bookmarking app. I really hope not, there are way too bookmarking apps out there, but there are no Read It Laters.

Favorites and Bulk Edit

The Gmail-esque star icon helps you mark articles that you like as favorites. Use the drop down to change the view from the regular queue to favorites only.

Bulk Edit mode is another thoughtful addition. Archive, delete, favorite, or tag multiple items with just a few clicks in the new bulk edit mode.

Do I Like It?

In a single word, No. The new Read It Later looks a lot like every other bookmarking app around the block. The minimal reading experience without any distractions is now gone. Isn’t that the very foundation of its existence?

Just look at how different the article reading views are, before and after the UI refresh. Which one do you think offers a better reading experience?

It’s unbelievable how many new elements have been added to the new interface and the worst part is that I can’t get rid of them. The old interface had most of these new features (now placed in the forefront prominently), except that they were all organized neatly under one.

Make no mistake, I’m not complaining about the features and the Read It Later team can add as many they as they please. But it’s this new UI with so many useless frills that worries me. At the very least, I want the clutter free reading view back.