Tech Tip Tuesday–Read Articles Later with Instapaper/Instafetch

As I promised last week, this week we will begin looking at different Android apps that I have found to be useful. If you are an iPhone user, never fear, I’m sure there are similar apps out there for you! When I can, I’ll try to suggest some equivalents for those as well.

---

Have you ever been sorting through blog posts in Google Reader and found one you’d like to read but simply don’t have the time right now? Maybe you stumbled across an article on a website that you’d like to read later to use as inspiration for a devotional thought. Time is of the essence, though, and you have to go to the hospital to visit someone.

How can you make sure the article won’t be lost? Enter Instapaper.

Instapaper allows you to quickly save links to web pages for reading later. There are a few interesting features, such as "text only” reading (so that you can cut down on distracting pictures, ads, etc.) and an archive function, so that you can save article links indefinitely.

Another great feature of Instapaper is the “Read Later” “bookmarklet” that you can add to your bookmarks bar. This allows you to quickly save articles to Instapaper without having to leave the page you are on. Also, if you are a Google Reader user you can use the “Send To” tab at the bottom of a feed window to send an article to Instapaper. To enable this, go to “Settings>Reader Settings>Send To” and click the Instapaper box. Other features include allowing you to send articles to your Kindle (see last week’s T3) and even creating printable versions of web pages (if you still use filing cabinets).

But wait, this article is about Android apps, right?

Enter Instafetch.

Instafetch will sync your Android phone with your Instapaper account and allow you to read articles that you saved for later. Why bother to use Instafetch? Well, have you ever tried to read very much text from a “real” website on an Android phone? It can be a little difficult, and some websites don’t load very well at all.

Instafetch solves this problem. When you view a web page in Instafetch, it automatically converts the page to a “text-only” reader view. This is much easier to handle reading on an Android phone.

Also, for users of the Google Reader Android app, you can send pages directly to Instapaper from your Android phone. When is this useful? Well, when you come across something you’d like to read, but know it will open slowly on a web page, simply send it via Instafetch to Instapaper (Menu>More>Send>”Add to Instafetch”), open up Instafetch, and read!

Think about this next time you have to rush out of the office to a place that you know you will be sitting and waiting for a little while. Instapaper/Instafetch can certainly help you make use of that time!

~Daniel Howell