Apple are on a quest to bridge your browsing experience between your Mac & iDevice. One such attempt is the inclusion of Reader in Mobile Safari.
For those that don’t normally use Safari on OS X, Reader is a feature in Safari that pops up content from the webpage you’re reading, it cuts out the ads and other visual distractions and gives you nothing but the content in an expanded and slimed down view for improved readability.
It’s a great feature in Safari but also one that I rarely use.
You see, it’s not difficult to read content from a webpage while on your Mac. However, on your iPhone reading content can be very hit and miss. A lot of times I find myself having to zoom into content while on my iPhone to read paragraphs of text – sometimes a frustrating experience.
The introduction of Reader in Mobile Safari aims to improve your reading experience. And it does a brilliant job.
When accessing a webpage in Mobile Safari, a Reader badge will appear in your address bar if Safari detects an article on the page. Clicking on this badge will overlay the webpage with just the content and imagery within the post.
The text is expanded and all distractions are instantly cut from your view.
You can increase and decrease the font size but for some reason you can’t pinch zoom to increase the font size. You also can’t swipe left or right to view the next published article from the site you are reading. But then again, that’s not really the point of Reader – but it would be a nice feature all the same time.
You can share the post you’re reading too with posting to Twitter and “Add to Reading List” the most interesting of your choices.
Add to Reading List will add the article to a list that is accessible by going to your bookmarks within Mobile Safari and clicking on Reading List. Here you will be presented with posts that you have marked to read later. It’s nothing more than a glorified bookmarker but also a very useful feature.
If you have logged into your Twitter account within your iPhones’ Settings, you can tweet a link to the page you’re reading to your Twitter followers. You can also tag your followers to include them in a possible conversation about the post or to alert them about interesting content.
All in all, Reader on Mobile Safari is a great addition to an already great browser. I like how Apple has introduced a fall back for websites that either don’t have mobile versions of their site or simply poorly present their content for mobile devices.
