Instapaper vs. Readability

What a busy month for readers!

First, the VC-backed Readability iOS app is finally out, and along brings a sheer amount of unfair criticism towards Instapaper.

Then the new iPad 3 is out with a gorgeous Retina display that makes reading a true pleasure.

And this week as well Marco Arment released the newest version of Instapaper, 4.1.

So, what’s new?

Marco has published a detailed blog post on the matter, and I recommend you to go read it before.

Obviously, this release’s most important feature is the inclusion of six high-quality typefaces, three serifs and three sans-serifs.

By personal preference and because of my deteriorating sight I’ve chosen Tisa at a relatively big size. Here’s how it looks.¹ I love it.

As you can see in the screenshot as well, Instapaper now has a fullscreen mode. Admittedly, the bottom bar isn’t invasive to begin with, but it sure looks nicer and allow for more text to be shown on the screen.²

Finally, Marco added a nifty little feature: sepia screen-tinting during sunrise and sunset hours. For anyone that uses f.lux ³, that’s basically the same thing. And Marco was right, I don’t even notice it.

People made some fuss early this month when Readability was introduced and started to belittle Instapaper. And even send trash at Marco.

I’d like to chime in on the matter.

First, there is the actual apps.

Instapaper has been around for a few years now and is at its fourth major revision. The interface feels native. The grid view on the iPad is really great. There are a lot of options to customize typefaces, leading, width, size and color. The app launches very quickly, almost instantaneously.

Readability is weeks old and has been in the works for ten months at the most. It has been the first to include original typefaces. The UI is polished and looks great, but the UX is lacking. The app does not feel native. And it is painfully slow to launch.⁴

Then there is the business models.

Instapaper is a single-man operation run by Marco Arment. The app is premium priced at $4.99. Although it had a free sibling at first, it has been discontinued a few months ago. Marco said that it led neither to a drop nor to an increase in sales.⁵ Instapaper’s customers seem to consider it worth the five bucks. I agree.

Readability on the other hand has been created by arc90 which touts itself as “a consulting firm, a product shop, and an idea incubator”. It first launched has a much criticized service to pay content publishers. (Benjamin Brooks wrote a blog post on the controversy.) Since the service wasn’t very popular, they made it free and from then on the number of subscriptions seemingly dropped. This month, they finally relaunched as a direct competitor to Instapaper. Only it’s free.

The app is distributed freely on the App Store. The web service is free, too.

The company is backed by venture capitalists. It has the same business model as Twitter and Instagram: “grow first, monetize later”.

They expect somehow to find a way to make money later when the service will have grown enough.

I don’t know about you, but I feel pretty bad now that Google⁶ and Twitter are selling us, the users, to their customers, the advertisers.

I mean, I’d much prefer to pay a little extra each month to use Twitter instead of being forced to see advertisements in my timeline.⁷ Unfortunately, this isn’t the way the company is going.

What will happen with Readability is yet to be seen. However, there is no way it can continue being free. It will have to make money somehow. Seeing how the company has failed with its previous business model, I fear it will go with ads.

Instapaper, on the other hand, as I said, is premium-priced. Marco also refused venture capital this summer. He has made it clear that we are the customers and that the product is the app & the web service. I’m confident in Instapaper’s future as a paid app. I’m also confident I’ll never see ads in the app, neither will I somehow become the product sold to an advertiser.

In the end, Readability is a very nice app and service. It is gorgeous.

However, Instapaper is a superior product and has a business model that protects the user.

That’s why I’m sticking to it.

Addendum: Well, you never know what’s going to happen next. This morning, AppAdvice revealed Readability’s sinister behavior regarding attribution of shared articles. Basically, in contrary to Instapaper, Readability’s Share feature does not link to the original article but to a processed version instead that sits in Readability’s servers.

This stirred the community quite a bit, and the company has been since asked to clarify its position. Marco Arment feared on Twitter that it would also hurt his and Read It Later’s business.

Finally, later in the day, Readability publicly acknowledged the issue and changed its sharing policy. Good for them.