Instapaper, our favorite iOS web reading application, works because it recognizes both the strengths and weaknesses of your device -- something most websites either don't or can't consider. Just-released version 2.3 provides a terrific example of this in the new way it handles nighttime reading.
Impresario Marco Arment, who recently left his job at Tumblr to work on Instapaper full-time, outlines the changes on the Instapaper blog. Here, I'm going to highlight just one, because I think it's both very cool and a good illustration of this problem of working within constraints of both a device and a platform.
Instapaper can now automatically switch modes from light (dark text on a light screen) to dark (light text on a dark screen). How the application pulls it off is very clever.
"There’s no API access to the iPhone’s ambient light sensor," Marco writes, "so I can’t just enable dark mode in dark rooms... And I can’t just look at hours and the date, because 5 PM in December is much darker in Alaska than in Costa Rica."
Instead, Instapaper uses the phone's location (there's an API for that!) and the local sunset time wherever your phone is. After dark, Instapaper goes into dark mode. If you mostly use Instapaper indoors, in light rooms, you can always leave the light/dark toggle on manual.
"Leave it to me to come up with the least-social use of locations possible," Marco writes.
Other changes include text preview snippets on both iPhone and iPad; a smart Kindle-inspired length and progress meter (more dots equal longer articles - darkened dots show progress); improved account syncing and sharing features; and a bookmarklet-installation feature that cuts out a few steps, but is still harder than it ought to be (Apple's fault, not Instapaper's).
On another app, the new version's interface changes would be tweaks. Here, they're key design choices for better readability. It's the best-designed undesign service going, stripping the core design from the story and reformatting it in a way that gives the user more control (but also more guidance) over the content's look and feel.
See Also:
- Instapaper Inventor Links Inattentive Reading to Information ...
- Design Is Dead. Long Live Design!
- Instapaper: A $5 App That Justifies Your iPhone Purchase
- New, Improved Instapaper for Kindle
- Preview: Instapaper Pro for iPad
- Instapaper Update Adds Pagination, Dictionary and Browser
- 10 Apps We're Excited to Try on iPad Launch Day
