We’re pleased as punch today to release a new web mobile experience for all Readability subscribers. It’s been completely rebuilt from the ground up to be faster and more efficient on iOS and Android phones and tablets—hello, Nook Color!
Powered by cleaner code and new javascript libraries (including Zepto, Underscore, Backbone, iScroll, and Persistence), the new version is a third smaller and makes half as many requests.
How can you get it? If you’re a subscriber, you’re already got the new version. Just visit http://readability.com on your mobile device (or open the Home Screen app again if you made one)—voila!
There may be one or two things missing—swipe gestures for instance—but we’ll add them back in. For today, we wanted to do good things for the speed and usefulness of all mobile users rather than wait for all the features we dream of.
Please make suggestions on our Ideas site or send feedback straight to contact@readability.com
This new version is not remembering the position of the article for me. I am using the iPhone.
I appreciate the speeed, but for devices like the iphone (I have the 3gs) it has even less space to read. The header bars at the top are even thicker, and due to the way the article scrolls now the Safari URL bar also doesn’ t disappear as we scroll down as it used to. This leaves very little room for article text.
@cjmegatron81 Good call! We’ll get that fixed as soon as possible.
@Jason that’s great feedback. In iPhone’s Safari, adding Readability.com as a bookmark to your Home Screen creates a web app without the Safari toolbars. Much more room for reading!
I like the improvements, although I’m betting you could make the :fixed bar on the top half as tall and it would still look great (and free up precious reading space).
@Quinn That has a lot to do with thumb size, but we’ll take it into consideration. Thanks!
Nice work. I appreciate the speed and it is a beautiful experience on my iPhone.
Now please make it a little easier to get stuff *into* Readability on mobile. (A dedicated email per account, support from major Twitter clients, etc. Kudos to Tweetbot for already supporting!)
Site is looking pretty good on my Palm Pre 2. Only issue is having to reposition to top of page when entering an article, but that’s likely a browser bug on webOS.
A subscriber on Twitter reported that all links were opening in Safari instead of the web app.
If that happens for you—or if you see a blue “You must be connected to the Internet” error—the solution is to:
1. fully quit Safari*
2. open Settings.app > Safari > Clear cache
3. then re-open Safari
4. make a new Home Screen app
* to fully quit an iOS app, double-click the home button to show the recently used applications. Press and hold any of the icons. Once they begin to wiggle, find the Safari icon and tap the red circle-minus button.
I second the request for an email address that URLs can be forwarded to. At least until more apps and sites support Readability.
Forgot to say thanks for allowing smaller font sizes when viewing on iPad.
@Max Fenton
Thanks for the tip! Loads better now, and perfect once the saving of the reading position gets fixed!
Really ?
How do I get all my Instapaper links into readability?
Rob and Russ— take a look at ifttt for emailing links to your reading list: http://blog.readability.com/2011/09/ifttt/
Guys, you just broke it for iPhone!
Please remove the dammed readability bar at the top (doble tap in the old version was Ok!), and let the page scroll naturally so the scrollbar appears (feedback) and the address bar goes away.
Look at this:
http://t.co/g2NwjduG
The web app is not good because it does not keep position in the page and you have to manually copy/paste the URL. JavaScript bookmarklets in safari are faster. Improve that instead!
Thx.
Hi cigumo, sorry you’re frustrated with some of the changes. We prefer the new design and hope it grows on you.
The new site is faster, more straightforward, and works on a wider range of mobile phones and tables. There are solid technical reasons for the choices we made, but we definitely plan to keep improving. The overall speed improvements were just too great for us to wait on perfection.
One small point: that address bar should go away when you add Readability.com as a home screen app. If it’s still showing up, or if you have other feedback, please contact us!
When will the position not being remembered issue be fixed?
Hi cjmegatron81. That’s contingent on a few other pieces we’re working on. It’s definitely on our list. If you drop us a line, we’d be happy to email you when it does change. http://readability.com/contact —thanks!