Read It Later Free

Summary

At the latest Apple Keynote in San Francisco, Steve Jobs unveiled Reading List – Apple’s new innovative service that allows you to mark websites to read them later. Reading List also lets you display websites in text form with only the most important information. Now there’s an application for our beloved Android smartphones called Read It Later Free.
 

Read on for more details in today’s review.
 

There really isn’t all that much explaining to be done with Read It Later. It’s basically a way to save texts to be read later at your own convenience.
Why not just use bookmarks? I mean there are all sorts of bookmark synching programs, so it’s not a big deal, right? Well, the thing is that bookmarks quickly become very disorganized and lead to total chaos. Ideally, bookmarks should be arranged into folders and subfolders, but in real life it’s much more difficult than that.
 

Read It Later takes care of this dilemma with brilliance and excellence. First off, you’ll have to create a Read It Later account (can be done directly in the app). There’s no way of getting around this important step since you’ll need the account to keep everything organized and synchronized. The second step is to install a Read It Later button to your regular browser, which can be easily done with Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. After that point, you’ll be able to save interesting websites with the click of a button.
 

The Read It Later Free app works based on the same principle. The app allows you to use the web service just as efficiently on your smartphone. It’s extremely useful since many of us regularly browse through blogs and sites with interesting content that we would like to read at some point in the future. A simple click on Add to Read It Later automatically synchronizes the site with your account.
I would be doing the app a disservice if I didn’t mention all of the extra features. When saving websites for later reading, you can choose between a text-only view and the original content. If, for example, you wish to enjoy the AndroidPIT.com blog (as I’m sure you all do), but without all the annoying formatting you can select text with pictures only.
 

Read It Later can even decide for you automatically by formatting the website as it see fits. Amazingly, the app usually makes the right decision and displays everything in the best possible way. Another great thing is the ability to tag websites for future reference and tagging works much better than your regular bookmarks. Unfortunately, you cannot create tags with the app in the free version and you’ll have to chip in some money for the pro version.

Without a doubt the app’s key feature is the ability to save texts to your smartphones or tablets and read them offline without an internet connection. This may seem a bit irrelevant in today’s mobile internet age, but it’s a great thing to have on long car rides and flights. For those of you with limited data plans, you can save websites and texts to your phone at home via Wi-Fi and read them on the go without needing a 3G connection.
 

Bottom Line: All in all Read It Later Free is very impressive and solid as an app. The extra features included in the pro version are cool, but not really a must. The free version of Read It Later includes enough useful functions to work well on any smartphone. Obviously, the service isn’t very relevant for people with unlimited data plans and RSS readers, but it’s very useful for everyone else.

Read It Later Free comes in a modest yet stylish black color. The application’s design works well with Android and isn’t just an iPhone rip-off.
 

In general, the controls are both easy, intuitive and a pleasure to use. The app does, however, lack a bit of flair and some of the websites aren’t always displayed correctly
 

I've been using Read It Later Free for quite some time now and I haven't noticed any major issues. Everything is remarkably smooth and quick. Perfect synchronization and amazing speed! It's totally...awesome!

Read It Later Free can be downloaded from the Android Google Market. In order to use the tagging feature, you'll have to shell out $2.90 for the pro version.