Readability (for iPad)

There's no shortage of iPad newsreading apps, software that's designed to give you a clean reading experience on Apple's slate. While apps such as such as Google Currents (Free, 3.5 stars), Flipboard (Free, 4.5 stars), and Zite (Free, 4. Stars) focus on replicating a print experience, Readability specializes in bookmarking?both on the iPad and on the desktop. The free app not only lets you read Web pages in a clutter-free environment, but you can save an archive stories for offline reading. It's one of our favorite new iPad reading app, and more than worthy of an Editors' Choice award.

Getting Started With Readability
When you launch Readability, you encounter a signup screen that prompts you to create a username and password. You also have the option of taking a swipe-able virtual tour that serves as a guide to using the app. Once you're logged into Readability, the app presents an extremely clean, near-blank reading area that has a simple menu bar on top and a lone "Getting started with Readability for iPad" blur that serves as a sample of the reading experience. Tapping the blurb opens a link to an introductory post on the Readability blog that gives you a rundown of how to use the service?another instructional piece just in case you skipped the tour. I decided to leave that there as reference and move on to adding links.

The Readability Experience
Adding links is as simple as tapping the "+" icon, and keying in a URL or site name into the search area. When you open a page that you'd like to read, Readability serves up two options: Read Now and Read Later. Tapping Read Now strips a webpage down to the basics by removing ads, headers, and other potentially distracting elements. What's left behind is a webpage that resembles other iPad newsreading apps in that it features black text on a spacious white background, which makes it simple to focus on content?the stripped down look is pleasing to the eye. Readability, however, differs from them in that each URL is given its own separate page; it doesn't attempt a magazine or newspaper column-based format. You can, naturally, view the Web page in its natural state by tapping the "Web View" link in the upper-right corner.

Bringing a finger to the bottom of the page makes a menu bar appear that lets you choose one of five font styles, text sizes, and column widths?there's a nice amount of customization. You can also invert the page from dark text on a light background to light text on a dark background. Tapping Read Later bookmarks your page (more on that later). Tapping the options icon lets you share articles via email, Facebook, or Twitter. There are also options to open the full page in Safari, and to copy the URL to the iPad's clipboard for pasting elsewhere.

Reading Stories Later
When you return to the home screen you'll see all the stories that you've saved when you tapped "Read Later." Tapping "Edit" lets you archive or delete stories (archived stories disappear from the reading list, but are searchable if you enable that feature in Options). Double-tapping one of the save stories opens a small column left of the article that lets you favorite, delete, or archive. Stories that you've saved are synced to Readability.com where you can also view stories. The Web page houses the Readability browser extension, which lets you Read Now, Read Later, and Send To Kindle. The one drawback is that Readability does a poor job in bookmarking top-level URLs such as PCMag.com. While you can certainly save those links, they are rendered quite poorly in the stripped down view; you have to open "Web View" to properly read them.

Should You Download Readability?
Readability makes reading and bookmarking on the iPad a snap. Commuters, or people who are constantly on the go, will find this app invaluable as it makes it simple to save and read articles of interest at anytime. Just avoid top-level domains and you'll thoroughly enjoy this Editors' Choice award-winning iPad app.?

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/SpGWv1tczn0/0,2817,2401189,00.asp

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