Instapaper, the uber popular iOS “reader it later” app, received a major update on Android today. I’m still not sure why people wouldn’t go with the free and equally as impressive Pocket for their “read it later” app of choice. But choices are never a bad thing, even if the developer thinks Android is the slums of the mobile Earth, will never match the polish of iOS, and that you probably can’t afford his app. He would like to thank you all for your support, though, because you’ve helped make updates like this possible. 

Familiar with Instapaper? It’s this ultra-popular iOS read it later type of app that apparently, some Android users have been begging for. Think of it as the most minimal app on the planet that allows you to catch up on articles you may have started earlier in the day, but would like to finish later. At $2.99 though, we are trying to figure out how the price is justified. Pocket (formerly Read It Later) is free and in my opinion, much more beautifully designed and with more features. Plus, I watched Instapaper’s developer the other day talk about design and being minimal, yet he couldn’t even code the legacy menu button out? That would be the awful looking black bar at the bottom of all of those screenshots.

To be fair, the app does function as advertised. It is minimal, but with just the right amount of features to allow it to get the job done. It’s up to you to decide if you want to pay that price.

Like most of us, I use my phone in a newsreading capacity quite often. Whether I’m looking through Google Reader or even browsing Droid-Life, I use my phone to keep up to date or to just kill some time when I have nothing else to do.

Instapaper makes that easier by stripping the formatting from sites that I want to save for later. The end result is a clean page that retains text-based formatting (like italics, bold and hyperlinks) while eliminating other annoying elements that may be obtrusive, like ads or sidebars. A third party has recently come out with an Android app, and I thought it might be a good idea to put it through its paces.