

Instapaper for Retina iPad - nsavant
http://www.marco.org/2012/03/16/instapaper-for-retina-ipad

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pixelcort
I'm very impressed by the year over year continued refinements and
improvements to Instapaper. Back in 2008[1] Marco mentioned he only spends a
few hours a week on it. I wonder how many hours a week he spends on it these
days.

[1]: <http://blog.instapaper.com/post/60070053>

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jonursenbach
He left Tumblr back in 2010 to work full-time on it.

<http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/marco-arment-instapaper/>

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pixelcort
Ah yes I remember that now. Thanks for the reminder!

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rdl
Instapaper is one of the main reasons I got an iPad 3.

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mds101
That doesn't really make much sense. If reading articles is your main
application for the device, why not buy the iPad 2 especially after the huge
price drop?

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hboon
Because the retina display makes it so much better for reading.

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c1sc0
More beautiful, sure, but _better_? I doubt it, my guess is it'll strain your
eyes just as much as any other backlit display.

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rdl
I've been relatively happy with the IPS panel in the iPad 1 not straining my
eyes. My main gripe is that the brightness of the backlight doesn't go low
enough -- in a dark room (i.e. in bed with no lights and someone else sleeping
nearby), it would be nice to be able to use the iPad with very minimal
backlight. E-Ink would require a book light (which is kind of lame). This
seems to be one of the places where OLED would be superior.

It's frustrating that IPS LCD, OLED, and E-Ink all have such distinct
advantages, so the idea of having a single device with the best screen in all
contexts isn't really possible. I assume OLED will eventually be that.

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frankus
I uncovered a bug when naively recompiling a universal (iPad/iPhone) app with
the 5.1 SDK. The app had high-res assets for the iPhone but not the iPad.

Apparently the @2x modifier takes precedence over the -Landscape and -Portrait
modifiers, resulting in retina iPads preferentially using the high-res iPhone
launch screen over the low-res iPad launch screen (which are optimized for
each launch orientation).

So you end up with a mildly- (portrait) or greatly-distorted (landscape)
launch image on high-res iPads if you simply recompile. I imagine this is what
Apple was trying to avoid, with reneging on what their API docs say about
modifier precedence.

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Erwin
The screenshot is looking great. Ignoring form factor, is the new iPad going
to match Kindle's reading quality? I generally read fiction on the Kindle (2nd
gen) and anything that has graphics or requires rapid page turning on the iPad
(1G).

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nirvana
Having used a retina screen iPhone and iPod I'd say in my opinion the new iPad
(which I haven't seen) is going to far exceed the kindle's screen in
readability.

Where I think kindle probably still has the edge is in ergonomics,
specifically weight. The iPad is too heavy for me to hold like I would a
physical book. (but I make do with this fact and use it anyway as one... and
I've got the heavier first generation iPad.)

All the other things the iPad does have a big impact, but as a pure reading
device (iBooks is my killer app) the iPad is working out great for me, so I
look forward to getting a third generation.

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smackfu
It does make me wonder if a higher DPI screen would really help the Kindle in
readability. Or if the major issue now is just the contrast.

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OoTheNigerian
Competition is good. Readability is certainly making him stepup. I still think
ignoring android is a mistake (assuming he continues to do so in the future.).
I foresee sharing happening within these read later apps and the size of the
network matters.

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gtufano
I don't really know. Assuming that this is a free market, I think the fact
that nobody stepped up on Android (with a noticeable success) is probably an
indicator of the fact this could not be an error. More seriously (hoping we
can have a quiet discussion about differences in market between iOS and
Android): Instapaper makes (probably serious) money selling the app. Can you
make (serious) money in Android without Ads and without going the freemium
way? Enough money to justify the additional effort and the fact that this will
probably slow the development on the current platform?

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Tyrannosaurs
Marco has implied that he makes a "six figure income" from it (on the Planet
Money podcast) but has never given more details than that that I'm aware of.

My reading of a lot of the commercial Android developer pieces is not that
it's impossible to make money on Android, just that where you have limited
resources it tends to be the case that they can more profitably be utilised on
iOS work. The issue for someone like Marco where it's just him is is less can
you make money in Android (with or without ads, that's kind of secondary),
more is working on an Android version going to bring him more money than
putting that same effort into keeping Instapaper close to the top of the iOS
pile.

Obviously if you're a company with several programmers and you're happy with
that model then so long as the cost of building an Android version is less
than money it brings in, it makes sense because you can just bring in someone
else to do it without detracting from your other work. If you're a one man
band (or similarly small outfit) with no interest in taking on and managing
more people it might not.

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tuananh
May I ask is that "six figure income" is per month?

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Tyrannosaurs
He didn't specify.

Essentially he was talking about what an iOS developer "might" earn. If memory
serves he pitched that the equivalent of a six figure salary was possible /
reasonable if you were successful and I think agreed that that was the sort of
thing he was getting.

Obviously that puts it at between $100,000 and $999,999 a year, so fairly wide
error bars on that.

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melling
I didn't know Marco had a podcast until I heard about it in this thread. Got
it this morning and I'm listening to him say how he was ready for iPad Retina
back in October. I've had that being ahead of the game feeling before then
something comes along at the end to throw a wrench in it. I think that's why
releasing/shipping is such a good feeling.

Even then, once I built the free version of my app without a necessary ObjC
linker flag and shipped it with a bug that caused it to crash on a couple of
screens. Was always testing in debug mode...

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vacri
_This is slightly embarrassing: Instapaper doesn’t show Retina-resolution
graphics on the new iPad yet._

It's only slightly embarrassing for Apple's culture of product secrecy, which
prevents them from releasing tools in time for devs to have gear ready for
release.

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smackfu
I'm pretty sure the simulator that devs use supports the Retina iPad, and was
available before release date. The tricky bit is that the Retina iPad is
higher resolution that most people's desktops, so simulation becomes
difficult.

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frankus
I saw a tweet from him the other day saying he's got a 2650x1600 display (HP
ZR20W, I believe). So that just barely fits.

The simulator now scrolls, however, so you could in theory test retina iPad
apps full size in portrait mode on an 11" MacBook Air.

My 27" iMac (2650x1440) isn't quite tall enough even in landscape mode, but
it's not unusable thanks to the scrolling.

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TheFuture
Just got the update Marco. You nailed it with the new fonts. Looks really nice
in retina!

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kijin
> _the new selection of six beautiful, professional fonts designed for maximum
> legibility and long-form reading_

I haven't been following the iPad 3 closely. Are these new fonts included with
iPad 3, or are they included with the Instapaper app? If it's the latter, are
they available elsewhere? I'm still on the lookout for a nice serif font that
looks good on screen.

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hrktb
From the developper's podcast, these are custom fonts included in the app,
that he bought from foundries directly.

