Reading now in ReadNow

Instapaper is hands-down the best service available for saving articles from the Internet to read later. It also introduces the most passive stress in my life.

I am reading news and articles on the Internet a lot. When I’m bouncing around town or sneaking a peek during a meeting at the latest news updates in Reeder, it’s my common practice to toss articles over to Instapaper to follow up on later. That’s what it’s for, right? Doing so ensures I’ll have a steady source of reading material—hundreds of articles—that are already vetted and I know I will enjoy. Having so much awesome stuff custom-tailored to my likes does have a drawback; it’s one more overflowing inbox of potential madness.

readnowiconDavid Allen, the godfather of Getting Things Done, might refer to the morass of unread articles in my Instapaper feed as “open loops.” The Instapaper apps for iOS apps on my iPhone and iPad are top-notch, but when I’m at home reading with a display on my desk, Instapaper.com doesn’t cut it for me. While skimming the Mac nerd sites yesterday, MacStories directed me to ReadNow (a bargain at $3.99 on the Mac App Store) and the stress is beginning to seep out of my reading list.

ReadNow resembles many of the RSS feed readers for Mac OS X using the widescreen 3-column layout to display my articles to read. Column 1 is for my Instapaper articles, favorites, archive, and folders. The middle column lists my articles. Selecting one opens the article for reading in the third column on the right. The default views are pretty good. I shifted from the default “Paper” layout to white and set my reading font to Tex Gyre Termes, which provides a professional and readable magazine-like quality to the article.

Now, I’m cranking through articles that have been percolating in Instapaper since 2010. Yes, 2010! Embarrassing, but true. Let’s give a heartfelt thank you to developer Michael Schneider for bringing ReadNow to Mac word lovers. The best thanks would be to buy ReadNow now!