Marco Arment’s thoughtful and optimistic take on Instapaper‘s future, written in light of Apple’s recent announcement of ‘Reading List’ functionality, to be included in Safari for Lion and iOS 5:
When iOS 5 and Lion ship, Apple will show a much larger percentage of iOS-device owners that saving web pages to read later is a useful workflow and can dramatically improve the way they read.
If Reading List gets widely adopted and millions of people start saving pages for later reading, a portion of those people will be interested in upgrading to a dedicated, deluxe app and service to serve their needs better. And they’ll quickly find Instapaper in the App Store.
I’ll probably try out Reading List, but it would have to be amazing to replace Instapaper in my workflow. It’s just too useful, and I’m accustomed to using it everywhere (iPhone, iPad, Mac).
Keep up the great work, Marco.