What is it?
Read It Later (RIL) saves web pages to your computer, phone or other mobile device for later viewing, either online or offline.
For someone who does a lot of reading but never has the time to keep up with everything, RIL is an amazing free service developed by Nate Weiner, otherwise known as the man behind The Idea Shower (Twitter)
Taking advantage of the fact that Mozilla’s FireFox allows practically anyone with the ability and know-how to create an ‘extension’ and JavaScript bookmarklets*, Nate created the RIL service as an alternative to the typical bookmarking process included by default in most browsers.
* FireFox Extension & JavaScript Bookmarklet:
What does it do?
RIL takes the web address of the page you’re viewing and with ‘one click’ of the bookmarklet installed in your browser saves it to a “reading list” in your account. From there, you can log into your account on the web or through a mobile device app and read your bookmarked pages, mark them as “read”, archive them and even delete them once you’re done with them.
It allows you to filter your bookmarks by tags and there’s even a search function so you can find a bookmarked page you saved forever ago!
What’s the benefit in using it?
Unlike the ‘old days’ when you would go to the bookmarks folder or press CTRL+D (or whatever it is in your browser) and click through several steps to bookmark the page, RIL makes use of clever JavaScripting to allow you to only click once and the script then does the rest for you, saving you valuable time in the process.
As someone that spends a lot of time collecting articles and links from around the web via the various social media streams I have set up, I find the single-click bookmarking feature to be absolutely indispensible. It allows me to save dozens of pages each day, often when I’m cleaning my inbox and don’t have time to read all the links in the various messages.
Most recently I’ve taken to reading all of my bookmarked pages (save those with flash content) on my iPad. The iPad & Read It Later are such a perfect match – it’s just incredibly easy to get caught up reading for way too long because of how seamless the experience is using the iPad app.
I still use the FireFox bookmarklet to save all of my pages during the day while I’m at work and sync up my iPad when I get home and am settling down to do my reading for the day. (This, of course, doesn’t take into account all the links that come to me via RSS that I then save in RIL so I don’t lose them down the RSS stream…)
Features:
Cross-browser support, multi platform support and mobile support
With JavaScript Bookmarklets and plugins available for most major browsers, third-party web and desktop applications and link saving integration in a large number of third-party mobile apps, RIL has exposure and access to every corner of the internet from every internet-enabled device.
Online as well as offline browsing
One of the best features is that you can browse sites online through RIL when connected to the internet, but if you want to save the pages for reading when you won’t have a connection (or to save your 3G browsing credit) RIL gives you the option of saving whole copies of your favourite pages.
Not only that, but you get the option of saving the page text only or downloading a static version of the site, complete with images. This is an incredible feature and one of the biggest reasons I use RIL over any other service – I like to experience the ‘whole’ site when I read an article, much like the author intended. Sure, some of them it’s nice to save as text to get rid of all the ads and junk, but mostly it’s just nice to be able to see the “page” as if I were online when reading it.
PRO (paid) Features (for Mobile):
Tap to save bookmarklet
The big benefit of this is that you don’t actually have to open the link / page you want to bookmark – this little bookmarklet allows you to save the link by clicking it (or “touching” it on touch-screen devices).
As one could imagine this saves so much time, especially when you want to get a whole bunch of pages saved and don’t have that great an internet connection or if you’re really pressed for time.
Share – share your links on services such as Delicious, Facebook, Twitter and more
If you happen to want to share a link with your friends, RIL allows you to do so by posting it to other services.
Some of the sharing methods include sharing with “Delicious, Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader and a dozen more, posting to Twitter using iPhone apps like Echofon, Twittelator, and Tweetie” or even emailing the link or whole page content to a friend.
Fullscreen Reader for mobile, hiding the top and bottom grey bars
Tired of browsing the web on your phone and having the grey bars appear at the top and bottom of your screen? Want to take advantage of all the screen real estate you can to view your favourite pages? RIL Pro gives you this power! (Don’t get too dizzy with it!)
Exclude tagged items from main list (shows them in “folder”-like tabs only)
If you’re really organised with your RIL list and assign tags to your bookmarks to keep them all tidy, you can take it one step further in RIL Pro.
You can use the tags you’ve got set up like folders and filter the tagged bookmarks out of your ‘main’ list. This allows you to bookmark and view your miscellaneous pages as normal and reserve your tagged pages for viewing in a particular stream – much like a file / folder system in Windows Explorer / the Finder (Mac).
Unread count for iPhone / iPad
If you are in a rush, you can set your iPhone / iPad to download your most recent bookmarks without having to read them.
RIL will then display an “unread” count, much like the iPhone / iPad email app icon. This is a brilliant feature, though I wonder how someone like me with 1000+ bookmarked and “unread” pages would cope?
Auto-mark as Read option
Another optional feather that has a lot of potential and merit is the “auto mark as read” option.
The way it works is that when you open a page in RIL the app will wait for 5 seconds and then marks it as ‘read’ – the comparison given is that it acts “more like an email inbox this way”.
BETA (paid): Digest
An auto-grouping algorithm that sorts your RIL bookmarks into topics and shows them in an alternate display online and in the mobile views.
The Digest feature is an amazing process in that they go through your entire bookmarked history and categorises your bookmarks into various topics and presents them in either a list or thumbnail-and-preview style.
For a measly $5 USD, you can purchase the Digest feature for your account (you don’t have to upgrade to Pro to use it) and can view your digest online via the RIL website or in your mobile app (iPhone / iPad)
Note for those with large lists: I had to re-sync my whole reading list after I bought the Digest upgrade. The reason being was because I bought the Digest feature online and not through the App Store.
In an attempt to see if the feature would translate across in my account, I tried to log out and log into RIL on my iPad again – the list had disappeared and wouldn’t show in the new “topics” menu options.
Biting the bullet and accepting that I’d somehow stuffed up, I’ve now bought Read It Later Pro for my devices, so I’m all paid up. Looking forward to working with all the Pro features!
Adding the bookmarklet to iPad Safari
There is a tutorial for the iPhone on how to add the bookmarklet to the bookmarks folder so it acts the same as the one on the desktop browsers, but I’ve found a different way to do it for the iPad.
This might be a little involved for some as it involves some stuffing around to copy the JavaScript code – if I find a quicker way, I’ll update this tutorial.
I’ll walk you through it now, with screen shots.
Grab out your iPad and open the App Store
Search for iHTMLplus and install it – (it’s free)
Once installed, open it and go to http://readitlaterlist.com/add.php
Scroll down to the section that says “Bookmarklets:” in H4 tags
Touch and hold over the JavaScript that shows within the talking marks (“ “) after href= – be careful not to actually get the talking marks. Click the copy button.
Open Safari and navigate to any page.
Create a new bookmark in the “Bookmarks Bar” folder
Click the bookmarks button and go to the Bookmarks Bar folder
Touch the edit button and edit the bookmark you just created
Rename it to whatever you want to call it – I simply called it “Read It Later” so I wouldn’t forget which link it was
Then delete the contents of the Address area and paste in the code you selected before in iHTMLplus
Make sure once again that it is being saved in the Bookmarks Bar folder and touch off the box or touch the “bookmarks” button to go back to your bookmarks.
If you touch the address bar now in Safari, you should have a dark grey bar appear underneath it with your little bookmarklet sitting there ready to be used!
To use it, simply find yourself on a page in Safari that you want to bookmark for reading later, touch the address bar and touch the Read It Later bookmarklet that you just created – presto!
So use Read It Later and not “Read Later” by Instapaper?
There is another popular bookmarking service called “Read Later” by Instapaper, however I find their service to be quite dull and lacking any real visual stimuli. I’m someone that chooses aesthetics just as much as functionality, so naturally RIL wins over the Instapaper version in looks and (in my opinion) functionality as well.
You can do so much more with RIL than you can with Instapaper too, as I’ve described above – Instapaper just doesn’t do anywhere near as much as RIL. It comes built in to many apps as the standard way of bookmarking links for later review, but there doesn’t seem to be any real push to move it to people.
I’ve read reviews and such where people say they can’t live without it, but I think that people should give working with RIL a go for at least a month to see the difference it makes to your bookmarking and reviewing process.
Sorting through your bookmarked items is easier in RIL too, whether in the app or online – Instapaper is clunky and you have to pay attention to what you’re doing, otherwise you could inadvertently lose your bookmarks and not know where you’ve sent it (read, delete, etc.)
I didn’t really want to go into too much detail about Instapaper because I really don’t like it to be honest – I didn’t want to spend the time taking screen shots and having to re-learn how to use it. (I’ve been using Read It Later for just over six months and I’ve not looked back once!)
Support this “one man band”
Nate develops and maintains RIL all on his lonesome, including answering support queries and monitoring his social profiles.
It would be great if you would purchase the Pro version of the app, and if you’re interested in the Pro version, why not check out the Digest function for your free account? It’s only $5 USD in Beta and we don’t know how much it will be when fully released.
