The value of offline support with online devices

From AppVee’s review of Instapaper Free:

It’s not confusing in the sense that it’s hard to use, it’s just confusing as to why you would need to use it. The entire app is focused around you bookmarking websites from your main computer and then simply loading up this app and reading them from your iPhone. Now, if you think about it, with an iPhone, there isn’t really any place you’ll find yourself without some sort of reception.

I get comments like this occasionally: Why should I care about an offline reader when I have an always-connected iPhone?

Speed is a big reason. Loading a complete web page is slow over 3G and almost unbearable over EDGE. But this attitude more reflects a common problem that techies (myself included) often exhibit: not recognizing that the world that we tech geeks live in isn’t the world that most people live in.

Not everyone has an iPhone 3G. Not everyone has 3G coverage. Not everyone has strong reception. And not everyone has reception all the time – travelers and subway commuters, for instance, love offline reading.

(The review did at least accommodate for iPod Touch users, who definitely shouldn’t be underestimated or forgotten by developers whose apps are able to serve them.)

Instead of asking “Why would anyone need to use this?”, a better question is “Who could use this?”