Instapaper introduces Highlights, revamps web UI

Intsapaper 5.2 for iOS (iPhone screenshot 001)Intsapaper 5.2 for iOS (iPhone screenshot 002)

The popular read-later iOS app Instapaper (I prefer the free Pocket app, formerly Read It Later) has received an interesting update this morning bringing out a new Highlights feature which lets you create and save passages of text from any article, useful to keep those quotes and important notes handy. The biggest threat to Instapaper’s further adoption is its pricing structure: unlike the free Pocket, Instapaper is a $3.99 value

One of the most requested features, text highlighting is available across Instapaper mobile apps for iOS, Android and on the web. It’s pretty straightforward: simply select a text excerpt in the viewer and choose the new Highlight from the pop up menu to save any quote or passage of text for later.

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All your Highlights are synced across devices and stored in a dedicated Highlights section in the lefthand menu. Moreover, you can tell Instapaper to post your highlights to your linked social media accounts to automatically tweet them, post them to a Tumblr blog, drop them into Evernote and more.

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This is a freemium feature, meaning non-subscribers will get five free highlights per month. To remove this limitation and enjoy unlimited highlights, you’ll need to become an Instapaper subscriber via the In-App Purchase option (starting at $2.99 per month).

The team has revamped the Instapaper web interface, too, as seen below.

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The new web UI finally allows you to manage, organize and perform various actions on your saved articles and videos. In addition to Highlights support, the web interface now supports drag and drop, site-wide theming (White, Sepia, Dark and Storm), bulk editing for easier article management, better folder organization and management and more.

Intsapaper 5.2 for iOS (iPhone screenshot 003)Intsapaper 5.2 for iOS (iPhone screenshot 004)

Instapaper 5.2 changelog:

• Introducing Highlights. You can now highlight and save text from any article!
• Create a highlight by selecting text and pressing the “Highlight” option.
• Your highlights are immediately synced to all your mobile devices and Instapaper.com
• New Instapaper logo and icons
• Improved and more accessible social sharing
• Swipe from edge to navigate back from article view
• Move articles from folders directly back to “Home”
• Fixed bug where articles downloaded were displayed as “Downloading…”
• Other enhancements and improvements

Instapaper is universal and costs $3.99.

iOS 7.0 or later is required.