After downloading the app, logging in, and letting it sync (it displays a bunch of "Did you know that...?" style trivia as it does which is a huge plus for me) this is what I was shown.
The things that struck me immediately were the logo and the halo design. Ryan Bateman and Matt Legaspi certainly took the time to study the design guide and come up with something clean and slick. Here are some more screenshots of articles being read (you can double tap to make the chrome go away, and they get points for the simple prompt which explains that to you).
I had no issues at all reading the font and I think they picked a good one to start off with, although I'll be the first to admit that I don't know a thing about typography. To someone who cares, this font could be horrid. I doubt that's the case though. The articles I read were clear and had images downloaded with them. Images! For anyone used to reading articles on the subway, you know how much of a rarity that can be. I was feeling pretty confident in my purchase, $7 in all up to this point, until I attempted to shortcut navigation to the next article.
Nothing. No new article, no little blue haze to show me I was at an edge, nada. You see, I've gotten used to using Google Reader to read syndicated articles on my commute to and from work and if I'm just not interested in an article I just swipe! and I'm presented with a new one. That's been my experience with most reading apps, so I was shocked when this one didn't follow suit. I later discovered that you can swipe to move between the main sections of the app (Unread, liked, archived) but not being able to do it between articles is an oversight. You're going to be going from one article to the next far more frequently than from one section to the next. I'd even be satisfied with going to the next article by hitting the archive button, but that brings you out to the main list again as well.
I also was a little held back when after a full work day's worth of queuing articles, they weren't ready on my phone for me to read on the subway home. Since the tagline on the app's page mentioned using the best of Android's platform features I was doubly shocked to find that there was no background sync. To be fair, there is a daily sync feature where it will pull down all your articles once a day but I'm not sure that will cut it for any but the most relaxed readers. Perhaps I am the odd one out here, and everyone else prefers that the Instapaper queue is delivered once a day like a personalized newspaper. If that's the case, let me know! But I think an hourly background sync would be reasonable, and you can set it to do it on wifi only if the user is paranoid about data caps.
There are a couple of other minor issues as well, some are bugs and some are things which just aren't as "nice" as they could be. Offline archiving isn't working at the moment, which is most certainly a bug. It shows up on the device as being archived until you get a data connection again and sync, at which point they all jump back into the unread pile. The menu button on tactile phones doesn't bring up the menu either, and it's not that hard to make it do so. It's a nice to have for people who have been used to using the menu button for so long.
The use of intents could be a little better as well, in both directions. When sharing a block of text out it works marvelously, but it a little attribution link would be a kindness as well.
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| The selected text is shared with no problem, but a link to the original source would be decent and proper. |
When using the "Share" intent to move content into Papermill (which adds it to your Instapaper queue as well), it works fine in the browser, or anywhere the shared text is a link to the content and that's all. Unfortunately, the first time I attempted to use it was on a tweet with the intention to queue the linked article, and that didn't end up working. I realize that this is fine, and that other Instapaper clients work the same way, but a) a message saying it didn't work would be nice and b) the ability to parse out the links of a tweet and add them to the queue would be a huge differentiator!
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| Given the message, you'd think this works. Sadly, it doesn't (yet). |
Overall, I still think that this is a good application. It serves a good purpose, does so cleanly, and they are upfront about their goals: they want to design the best application they can for Instapaper on Android, and be damned about the profits of the ad-supported route. You have to admire that! Ryan Bateman admitted that he went into this eyes wide open in his overview of the first few weeks of sales, and he wasn't off the mark when he assumed that people weren't ready for that higher price. While I think there is still a group of people that will only ever pick up the free or 99 cent apps (they are on iOS too people, so don't think Android is the only market with cheapos!), I don't think that is the only reason that Papermill isn't selling. I think it may have launched early, missing some of the polish and UX flows that people are familiar with on Android. However, given the goal of the team (remember, they weren't expecting to make money off it and they still built it) I have no reason to believe that it won't reach that level of quality that they are striving for. And if they keep up the rate of updates, it isn't going to take them long.
I think the picture they chose for the about page says it all. It's a high quality shot, properly focused on Android, and it showcases the fun nature of the platform and its users. The app might not be "there yet", but the team behind it is. For me, that's all that matters. Supporting passionate Android developers is worth the cost of a latte. I recommend doing the same.
