01/02/13 22:00:50 ¶ ●

Safari Reading List: 3 months later

I promised to post an update to my Safari Reading List adventure. My original thought was basically to use Safari’s Reading List only. Safari is so ubiquitous on iOS that it doesn’t make much sense to use something else. At least that’s what I thought.
I also had problems with Pocket. I still find it hard to delete links. I don’t archive stuff.

After I made the switch, I briefly used Reading List. I was happy, but the problems started soon.

On iOS Reading List is really not well integrated. It’s really hard to put new links on Reading List, although there is an API apparently. I haven’t found any evidence about this, Downcast has a feature to add to Reading List though, so I suspect there is an API. It always takes a couple of taps to get into Safari and then add to Reading List.
I made an AppleScript to put new articles and links on Reading List. There is (was) a rule that executes an AppleScript when I get email from a certain address (+reading). But that didn’t work out either, because it would mean I would have to have Mail running more often than I do, to add links more quickly.

So despite my efforts to make it easier to use Reading List, it was, in fact, not much easier to use.
Pretty much every app has support for Pocket. Reading List? None. Maybe two. But mainly none.

The good thing about Pocket is that it’s available on any browser. Safari’s Reading List is only available in, well, Safari. I’m mentioning this because I also made the switch to Chrome on OS X, for various reasons¹.

I was jealous of Safari’s “shift-click to add to Reading List” feature. That’s why I whipped up this Keyboard Maestro macro to send to Pocket using a shift-click. The shift-clicking didn’t work, because it interferes when you make a selection and shift-click, but I set it to use F1 instead. The macro is contained in a group that is only available in “App: Google Chrome”. Adding new links to Pocket this way is way more comfortable.

So, in a word, Safari’s Reading List is nice, but Pocket is easier to reach than Reading List. Bummer.