iOS app v2.0 RC 1 - Reduce steps reqd for Send To Pocket/Instapaper?

I've been using iOS app v2.0 RC 1 and it's been very good - no stability issues. However I do have one suggestion: it currently takes 4 steps to send to Pocket/Instapaper (might be the same for Readability too, but I don't have an account to check)

1) Touch the gear
2) Touch "Send To"
3) Touch the service (Pocket/Instapaper)
4) Touch "Add to Read Later"

I save many articles for reading later when I'm offline and this seems a little excessive. Particularly the final step - which seems redundant to step 3.

Thanks for considering.

Jeff Hammond

6 Posts
0 Reply Likes

Posted 7 years ago

7 years ago

Samuel Clay, Official Rep

6514 Posts
1474 Reply Likes

Yup, as intended. I use Instapaper as well. I think those touches are just fine. Remember, not everybody uses read later services, so in order to not clog the toolbar, I hid them in a menu.

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2013-06-08T12:16:11+00:00

Christian Bogen

2 Posts
0 Reply Likes

Hiding them in the menu is fine but the extra confirmation(s) every time, well, suck. (Sorry, there’s no nice way of saying that. ;) I’d prefer saving the credentials in some settings screen/menu once and only being bothered by a dialogue in case somethings goes wrong. I really like NewsBlur a lot so far, but the clunky iOS Instapaper sharing could drive me away again. It just feels awkward.

2013-06-08T13:43:52+00:00

Antonis Lamnatos

37 Posts
2 Reply Likes

+1 on the redundant modal confirmation that appears every time. Drop that and the process becomes much better.

2013-06-08T13:56:37+00:00

Ross Karchner

6 Posts
0 Reply Likes

Yes! that little pop up is so annoying, and I don't understand what it adds.

2013-06-25T02:21:16+00:00

hawkrives

9 Posts
2 Reply Likes

Hiding them in the popup is fine and dandy. It's the two(!) popups that get me; one for acknowledging that you do want to read it later, and one that it was successfully saved.

I would *really like it* if you could get rid of one of them.

Actually, would you like a pull request? I can poke at this over the next few days and come up with something.

2013-06-25T02:38:11+00:00

Samuel Clay, Official Rep

6514 Posts
1474 Reply Likes

Sure, knock yourself out. Make sure you use the offline branch, as it sports a whole lot of new features ... as well as a Preferences dialog. So if you add Instapaper credentials, feel free to move them to the Settings.bundle.

7 years ago

Axel Wiklund

4 Posts
1 Reply Like

How about making it appear only after someone has linked a pocket account to the app? That way it wouldn't bother people who don't use pocket, but be much easier to use for those of us who do?

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1 person likes this

7 years ago

mvpittman

24 Posts
2 Reply Likes

I use Android, but I have similar concerns. I usually scan a title, and know at that point whether I want to read it now, read it later, or not read it. A gesture (swipe, long press, whatever) would be awesome for sending the article. In fact, I find myself long-pressing all the time looking for that.

Could I build a client who's sole purpose was to send RSS feeds to other services as efficiently as possible?

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1 person likes this

7 years ago

Michael Sindoni

18 Posts
4 Reply Likes

I have similar concerns with both the iOS app and the web app. It takes just too many steps to use these shortcuts. I use Pocket, and it's actually much easier to open each page individually, in separate tabs, and then use Pocket's "save for later" applet than to use the NewsBlur shortcut.

A one step keyboard shortcut would be ideal for the web app, that would avoid having a new on-screen button cluttering up the interface.

For the iOS app, the old two step process was better, though admittedly less flexible.

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2 people like this

7 years ago

Jeremy Higgs

2 Posts
4 Reply Likes

Echoing the original poster, it seems a little clunky/excessive to take 4 taps to send an article to Instapaper. After tapping the "Instapaper" service in the sharing screen, is there a need to confirm that the user wants to send the article to Instapaper (I've already tapped 3 times! I'm pretty sure!), and then present them with a "success!" dialog that they need to dismiss?

How about:
1. Gear menu
2. Send to
3. Instapaper
4. (Visual feedback, something other than a modal dialog, that shows that it's been sent)

If there was a way to "favourite" the Instapaper service and move it to the top-level gear menu, even better!

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4 people like this

7 years ago

Nicholas Riley

143 Posts
8 Reply Likes

Why not use the standard iOS share button icon or something resembling it? If you need more room, the browser icon could be replaced by turning the article title into a link (like every other feed reader I've seen), and the feed icon could be moved into the back arrow (it looks a bit strange by itself anyway).

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7 years ago

Haysdb

3 Posts
1 Reply Like

I'd just like to add my voice to this request. My workflow is to scan through my Twitter and RSS feeds rather quickly, sending articles to Instapaper to read later. This is something I do a lot, and it just takes too darn many steps to do it in Newsblur. The last two taps are completely redundant.

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1 person likes this

7 years ago

Bob Haroche

1 Post
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I echo the above comments that there are too many steps to send to Instapaper. If I choose to send to Instapaper through the gear icon (and it really should be it's own icon -- ie, a send to [the read it later service of your choice], I don't want to confirm that yes, indeed I do want to send it to Instapaper. Why else would I have selected to "Send it" there? And for God's sake, I don't need a confirmation dialogue requiring another click to let me know the "Send to..." was successful. If you and Instapaper have your coding/API right, it should simply happen. I'll know if there's a failure if/when the story doesn't appear in Instapaper.

I see that this issue has been noted since 2011. Seriously, I can't imagine there's any Instapaper (or Pocket or Readability) user who thinks this is an efficient, elegant UI. The whole point of these services is to quickly filter and save articles for later reading. Your UI defeats that purpose. PLEASE address this.

Now that Google Reader is dead, I think elements like this are going to be key to which new service GR users migrate their feeds. Thanks.

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7 years ago

Adam Wuerl

2 Posts
1 Reply Like

I recommend implementing something similar to Tweetbot's Instapaper support. in iOS, tapping and holding on a link sends it to Instapaper (or whatever read-later service is configured in settings), with a little popover header coming down from the top to provide feedback if it was successful or failed. It works on links anywhere in an article and would work on the header as well (linking the original post or the linked article for linked lists like Daring Fireball).

This enables NB to keep the existing menu interface without changes and add a new power-user feature for those who'd use it.

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1 person likes this

7 years ago

cool246

3 Posts
0 Reply Likes

Actually I wished I could save to Instapaper. On the iPad NB doesn ́t log into my Instapaper account ...

Besides that I second Adam ́s proposal. Even better would be a swipe a la Reeder ...

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