Upcoming iPad App: Instapaper Pro

instapaper pro ipad apps

Instapaper Pro will be coming to the iPad and hopefully it will be coming on launch day. MarcoArment [marco.org] the developer talks on his InstapaperBlog [blog.instapaper.com] that the app he releases will be universal for both the iPhone and the iPad. There will therefore be no need to download a different app for each device once you download Instapaper Pro it is yours for both devices!

You may wonder how it could be possible to bring an application out on day one without it even being tested on an actual iPad and why a developer would take that risk. Marco felt that his app needed to be out on launch day and an iPad wouldn’t be the same without Instapaper on it. The developer said:

Developers have been put in a difficult position: if we submit our applications for review and sale before we’ve ever used an iPad, we can be in the App Store on (or near) day one. But we won’t have had a chance to test our applications on a real iPad — we’ll just need to rely on Apple’s reviewers to tell us whether they work. This is risky, since we don’t even know some critical details about the iPad yet, like how much RAM it has or how quickly it will execute our animations and number-crunching.

So we’re left with two options:

1.Release the app for day one, but it might be buggy or non-ideal in a few areas.

2.Release the app after we’ve had a chance to test extensively on a real iPad, but it may not be available for many weeks after the iPad’s launch, during which time our current and new customers will be clamoring for a native version, and they’ll be stuck using the pixel-doubled version.

The second option seemed more sensible at first. That was my plan at the beginning.

But then I saw the pixel-doubled version of my app in the simulator.

It sucked, and it was completely unusable by my standards. I don’t think I’ll want to run any pixel-doubled apps on my iPad in practice.

As far as I’m concerned, Instapaper isn’t really available on the iPad until it’s native. (This also influenced my decision to make it a universal iPhone/iPad app: I don’t want anyone subjecting themselves to the iPhone edition in pixel-doubled mode.)

While I could have taken the conservative option and waited until a month or two after the iPad’s release before launching Instapaper for it, an iPad without native Instapaper Pro is not a device I want to own.

And I’m buying it on day one.

So I’m doing my best to make the day-one submission deadline. Even if the first version ships with a few edge-case bugs, I’d rather have that on my iPad for a couple of weeks than no Instapaper at all, and many customers have told me that they feel the same way.

This is a risky decision, but I feel that this is the right thing to do for me and my customers, so I’m going for it. If any bugs do crop up in the first version, I appreciate your patience and trust that I’ll fix them quickly. Thank you.

Instapaper Pro will still look the same as it would on the iPhone but obviously a lot bigger, the developer did say that there would be some interface tweaks and redesigns. The toolbars will be darker than previously, there will be no multi-column reading, no book page animations and no giant newspaper graphics. The main changes were made to the landscape list screen so that they now reveal the folders more prominently on the screen. Instapaper will still have the interface you would expect, dark mode and adjustable fonts.

The developer also mentioned that he would be making UI changes to the application once he’s got his hands on the iPad and used it for a while. He needs to obviously figure out what works well on the device what doesn’t and what the iPad can actually handle.

Do you use Instapaper on iPhone or iPod touch? Will you be looking forward to using it on the iPad?

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