Mini-FAQ on iOS updates, Reading List, iCloud
A lot of people have asked these questions on Twitter or via email since the WWDC keynote last week, so I’ve consolidated my answers here:
Will Safari’s Reading List feature “kill” Instapaper?
But I’m not standing still. I’m preparing some great updates for the coming months.
Can Instapaper integrate with Reading List somehow?
No. As far as I know, there’s no API to access Reading List’s contents or add pages to it.
Does Instapaper still support iOS 3.1.3?
Today: Yes. In the near future: No.
There are a number of great features that I want to use in iOS 4 and 5, and compatibility with iOS 3.1.3 is starting to become an expensive burden. My code is quickly filling with special cases and duplicate implementations, and this will hinder Instapaper’s feature development, maintenance, and stability until I can eliminate 3.1.3 compatibility. My quality assurance would also improve since my testing-device count would be greatly reduced.
So in one of the next releases, I’m raising the minimum to iOS 4.0. This will drop compatibility for the original iPhone and first-generation iPod Touch, all of which are now at least three years old and represent only 0.48% of Instapaper’s customers.
And in the not-too-distant future, possibly as soon as next spring, I intend to raise the minimum to iOS 5 because it has tons of great UIKit improvements and opportunities for me to delete lots of hacky legacy code. iOS 5 excludes the iPhone 3G and second-generation iPod Touch as well, which represent 3.4% of customers today, but that number is falling quickly.
Can Instapaper use Newsstand to get automatic background downloading?
Probably not. The specifics are under the WWDC-attendee NDA, but I think I’m safe to say that only Newsstand apps get access to background downloads, and there would be a number of downsides to making Instapaper a Newsstand app.
It’s also unclear whether this sort of use would be rejected. And since it might be right on the edge of permissable, it’s also a high risk that it might be approved and then later pulled from sale, which would potentially be very expensive.
I want to wait and see how other non-publication apps, such as feed readers, handle Newsstand before I’ll consider it. But it’s probably smarter to wait for Apple to possibly give more apps automatic-background-download abilities in the future.
Can Instapaper use iCloud to simulate automatic background downloading?
Not really. The idea would be to have an always-running Mac app on each customer’s computer to push newly saved documents through iCloud and onto the devices. But Apple doesn’t want developers storing this type of data in iCloud (the specifics of which are, again, probably under the WWDC NDA), and I don’t want to risk rejection.
Can Instapaper move its service to iCloud and get rid of its servers?
No. This could only work if Instapaper was just the isolated iOS app. But there’s an entire web service backing it that gives it benefits that iCloud can’t, such as support for all web browsers, non-Apple devices (most notably including the Kindle), a dynamic page-transformation engine, and API additions from hundreds of other services and apps.
Can Instapaper use the built-in iOS 5 dictionary and drop its current one from the download?
Possibly. Instapaper’s built-in dictionary has some useful features that Apple’s dictionary doesn’t offer, including words that link to their own definitions and support for other installed dictionary apps such as Terminology and foreign-language dictionaries.
So I might be able to use Apple’s exclusively in the future if it gets some improvements, but for now, I’ll probably just make it an option and continue to bundle my own, which only requires about 16 MB of space on the device.
Can Instapaper switch to the new iOS 5 Twitter integration?
Not without losing significant functionality, such as offline queuing of tweets. For now, I don’t plan to switch to it, although I may offer it as an alternative.
Can Instapaper use the new hardware-brightness control in iOS 5?
Yes! Can’t wait.
Can Instapaper use the iBooks-like page-turning mechanics in iOS 5?
Probably. I’d like to, but it would require a restructuring of my pagination code, and I’m not sure it’s reasonably possible for Instapaper’s content and considerations. I’ll be experimenting with this a lot in the next few months to see if I can get it working without significant drawbacks.
