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Instapaper for Retina iPad

marco.org

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Re: Instapaper for Retina iPad

#61

Post by MatthewPhillips »

gtufano wrote: post #19
OoTheNigerian wrote: post #14

Competition is good. Readability is certainly making him stepup. I still think ignoring android is a mistake (assuming he continues to do so in the future.). I foresee sharing happening within these read later apps and the size of the network matters.

I don't really know. Assuming that this is a free market, I think the fact that nobody stepped up on Android (with a noticeable success) is probably an indicator of the fact this could not be an error. More seriously (hoping we can have a quiet discussion about differences in market between iOS and Android): Instapaper makes (probably serious) money selling the app. Can you make (serious) money in Android without Ads…

I don't particularly care if Marco makes an Android app, it's his product, his time, he should do what he wants.

But let's assume that his analysis (as biased as it is) is correct. It still might be a net positive to make an Android version if you consider this. All Android sales are potentially a double sale. Android has a majority market share on phones and iPad has a (overwhelming) majority market share in tablets.

There is a strong chance that the person buying his Android version would also have an iPad. This is pretty obvious when you think about it. Android covers a wide spectrum, with a lot of people on the low end. The people who would be buying his app must represent those on the high end (simply because they'll pay for it), and those people are far more likely to also have an iPad.

Re: Instapaper for Retina iPad

#62

Post by Flenser »

sjs382 wrote: post #59
Kylekramer wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, he backed off that pretty quickly. He claimed it was for Shift Jelly only and his words got misconstrued as a public challenge.

Wow, really? Source?

Update at the end of the blog post rsynnott linked to

Re: Instapaper for Retina iPad

#63

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

Kylekramer wrote: post #56
rsynnott wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.marco.org/2011/12/07/standing-up-for-android He has invited people to do just that; if you make it with his public API, and he thinks it's good enough, he'll let you call it the official Android version and split revenue 50/50.

FWIW, he backed off that pretty quickly. He claimed it was for Shift Jelly only and his words got misconstrued as a public challenge.

I'm not sure that update supports the claim of back tracking.

That was an update after the original piece (sadly not dated) but I think it's more sensible to assume that the update was written in response to Shift Jelly reading it and contacting him, rather than him being in discussion with them before writing it. Certainly I'd think it would be a very odd piece to write if he were already in talks with Shift Jelly.

The piece certainly implies that that there would be discussion around the project ("the details of which we’d work out privately" in relation to the functionality) rather than him thinking that people would just start coding and then come to him with a finished article so it reads more naturally as a clarification than something more radical.

Re: Instapaper for Retina iPad

#64

Post by pixelcort »

jonursenbach wrote: post #3
pixelcort wrote: post #2

I'm very impressed by the year over year continued refinements and improvements to Instapaper. Back in 2008[1] Marco mentioned he only spends a few hours a week on it. I wonder how many hours a week he spends on it these days. [1]: http://blog.instapaper.com/post/60070053

He left Tumblr back in 2010 to work full-time on it. http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/marco-arment-instapaper/

Ah yes I remember that now. Thanks for the reminder!

Re: Instapaper for Retina iPad

#65

Post by eftpotrm »

rubergly wrote: post #45
huggyface wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

an Android version wouldn't provide enough revenue to warrant an employee or contractor. A statement with absolutely zero backing. Readability did the analysis and certainly seemed to believe that Android supported their product. Marco doesn't do analysis but instead just parrots the standard rhetoric, seemingly hoping that his words alone will make Android irrelevant and thus unnecessary of effort. His loss.

> Readability did the analysis and certainly seemed to believe that Android supported their product. Readability has a completely different (if any) business model. They're following the standard approach of using venture funding to gather as much market share as possible and then exploring way to extract revenue once they have a large user-base. Do you expect him to shell out a large sum of money to develop an Andro…

Any busines decision is a gamble. Porting to Android is a gamble because you've got an investment in a new platform which you don't have experience in to know if it'll pay off. Not porting to Android is a gamble because, frankly, Android phones are becoming more common in the wild than iOS phones. Tablets, it's still iOS at the moment but who knows what'll happen when Win8 launches?

No decision is risk-free, but if it were me I'd be putting a toe into Andriod's bathwater.

Re: Instapaper for Retina iPad

#66

Post by Heliosmaster »

nirvana wrote: post #42
Erwin wrote: post #24

The screenshot is looking great. Ignoring form factor, is the new iPad going to match Kindle's reading quality? I generally read fiction on the Kindle (2nd gen) and anything that has graphics or requires rapid page turning on the iPad (1G).

Having used a retina screen iPhone and iPod I'd say in my opinion the new iPad (which I haven't seen) is going to far exceed the kindle's screen in readability. Where I think kindle probably still has the edge is in ergonomics, specifically weight. The iPad is too heavy for me to hold like I would a physical book. (but I make do with this fact and use it anyway as one... and I've got the heavier first generation iPad…

give also a try to Stanza :)

Re: Instapaper for Retina iPad

#67

Post by ugh »

omaranto wrote: post #60
gtufano wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really know. Assuming that this is a free market, I think the fact that nobody stepped up on Android (with a noticeable success) is probably an indicator of the fact this could not be an error. More seriously (hoping we can have a quiet discussion about differences in market between iOS and Android): Instapaper makes (probably serious) money selling the app. Can you make (serious) money in Android without Ads…

What makes you think nobody "stepped up" on Android? There are a number of Instapaper clients for sale in the Android Market. I've only tried one (which sounded like the best from reviews I read), InstaFetch, and it's quite good. It has a couple of extra features beyond Marco's client: it can read articles to you (Android comes with a TTS library, I don't know if recent iOS versions let developers use Siri's TTS func…

iOS has VoiceOver. Every app should support text to speech, at least if the developer didn’t completely ignore accessibility. I’m just now testing with Instapaper and VoiceOver seems to work perfectly with it.

I don’t know whether that’s default, but I set my iPad up in a way that pressing the home button three times activates VoiceOver. You then select what you want VoiceOver to read to you. If you want it to just continue reading forever (instead of just reading what you selected, like a headline or a paragraph) you scroll down with two fingers.

It’s an accessibility feature, so its primary use case is not reading texts to you, but it works perfectly fine for that purpose – and in the vast majority of apps it just works, even without the developer doing anything.

Re: Instapaper for Retina iPad

#68

Post by bane »

gtufano wrote: post #19
OoTheNigerian wrote: post #14

Competition is good. Readability is certainly making him stepup. I still think ignoring android is a mistake (assuming he continues to do so in the future.). I foresee sharing happening within these read later apps and the size of the network matters.

I don't really know. Assuming that this is a free market, I think the fact that nobody stepped up on Android (with a noticeable success) is probably an indicator of the fact this could not be an error. More seriously (hoping we can have a quiet discussion about differences in market between iOS and Android): Instapaper makes (probably serious) money selling the app. Can you make (serious) money in Android without Ads…

So it's only worth it if you make serious money. But just pretty good money is not worth the effort?

We're not talking about a multi-million dollar AAA development cycle. Probably 2 or 3 months of a single developer and maybe a part-time artist. Achieving some profitability for a major app like his wouldn't be difficult.

But no, let's flush some profitability down the toilet because it'll only buy a slightly used last year's Porsche, not next year's all new one.

Re: Instapaper for Retina iPad

#69

Post by vacri »

batista wrote: post #18
vacri wrote: post #10

This is slightly embarrassing: Instapaper doesn’t show Retina-resolution graphics on the new iPad yet. It's only slightly embarrassing for Apple's culture of product secrecy, which prevents them from releasing tools in time for devs to have gear ready for release.

Yes, if only that secrecy had worked well otherwise for the company.

The world does not exist only in stark black and white.

Re: Instapaper for Retina iPad

#70

Post by omaranto »

ugh wrote: post #67
omaranto wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think nobody "stepped up" on Android? There are a number of Instapaper clients for sale in the Android Market. I've only tried one (which sounded like the best from reviews I read), InstaFetch, and it's quite good. It has a couple of extra features beyond Marco's client: it can read articles to you (Android comes with a TTS library, I don't know if recent iOS versions let developers use Siri's TTS func…

iOS has VoiceOver. Every app should support text to speech, at least if the developer didn’t completely ignore accessibility. I’m just now testing with Instapaper and VoiceOver seems to work perfectly with it. I don’t know whether that’s default, but I set my iPad up in a way that pressing the home button three times activates VoiceOver. You then select what you want VoiceOver to read to you. If you want it to just c…

Oh, thanks! I can't believe I never thought of poking around in the accessibility features to look for TTS. What I used instead on my iPod Touch was a dedicated TTS app (whose name I can't remember right now): to hear an Instapaper article, for example, I'd copy the entire thing to the clipboard (which was a little inconvenient since there didn't seem to be a "select all" command) and then paste it in to the TTS app. If I ever go back to iOS, I'll be sure to remember this tip.
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