Instapaper 2.2.5 for iPhone and iPad now available

June 29, 2010 3 min read

Note: 2.2.4 and 2.2.5 were only a week apart, so I’ve combined their notes into this post.

First, I’ve renamed “Instapaper Pro” to simply “Instapaper” for a few reasons:

  • It’s easier to find, less confusing, and more welcoming to new users who heard of “Instapaper” from somewhere and want to get the app.
  • I don’t want anyone not buying Pro because they think they aren’t serious enough users to need it.
  • It’s shorter and can fit entirely under the icon on the iOS home screen. Since the icon has always said “Instapaper”, it’s better to simply call the app that.

Now, onto the new features.

Pagination

  • Added swipe-left/swipe-right for page-turning (iOS 4 and iPad only). This helps when you’re holding the device one-handed and can only comfortably reach one part of the screen.
  • Added a subtle sideways-motion animation to indicate the direction of each page-turn.
  • Improved page-turn speed, especially under iOS 4.

iPhone 4 and iOS 4

  • Added background completion if you leave Instapaper while an update is running (iPhone 4 and 3GS only). It will continue downloading as much as it can until you lose internet connectivity, another app needs its memory footprint, or about 10 minutes elapse.
  • Icons have been updated for the iPhone 4’s Retina Display.

Rotation and position-saving

This is a big one. I’ve completely overhauled rotations and position-saving in articles. As a result:

  • Rotations are much faster and more accurately keep you in the same place.
  • Fixed iPad position-restoring when launched in landscape.
  • Fixed minor interface bugs when rotating.

And one more thing:

  • Now synchronizes your position in partially-read articles between multiple iOS devices, such as an iPhone and an iPad.

Positions are synchronized on every update, and it even uses background task completion on multitasking-capable iOS 4 devices to sync your position when you quit the app mid-article.

Other improvements

  • Added “Email Full Text” option to Share panel. This is especially useful for integration with other services that I don’t support yet, such as Evernote, that have email-in features. (By the way, did you know that Instapaper has an email-in feature? Check the bottom of the Extras page.)
  • Switched to OAuth for Twitter. You’ll need to log into Twitter in the app again. ( Note: There’s a problem with this in 2.2.4 and 2.2.5 that fails if your Twitter password contains certain special characters. I’m working on this and will have a fix ready for 2.2.6. I’m sorry about this.)
  • Fixed password-dialog problems on iOS 4.
  • Improved tilt-scrolling performance on iOS 4.
  • Fixed minor interface bugs related to the action menu, the folder list, and zooming text.

Instapaper Free

I’ll be updating Instapaper Free in the next few weeks (hopefully) to modernize its codebase and fix some bugs. In the process, like the formerly-“Pro” paid version, Graphical Mode will be removed. It’s just slaughtering the server, and it’s a terrible experience for people to try Free, think Graphical Mode is part of the product, and then buy the paid version, where it isn’t.

To make up for this removal, I’m adding position-saving and automatic updating to Instapaper Free, two of the biggest and most compelling features that it formerly lacked. I think this is a more-than-worthwhile trade.

More coming soon

As always, more features and improvements are coming in future updates. 2.2.6 will be a very minor bugfix update for the Twitter password issue, but I have a lot of great improvements planned for the version after that.

Thanks for your support, everyone.

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