Instapaper 2.3 adds many new features

As if Instapaper wasn't useful enough, version 2.3 for iPhone and iPad was released late last night and brings with it a long list of stellar features. Instapaper is the web service and iOS app that lets you save articles for later reading quickly and easily. My favorite new feature is OmniFocus support. Here's how it works.

Open an article and tap the Share button. A slip with several options will appear, including Send To OmniFocus. Give it a tap and OmniFocus launches, creating a new inbox item with your article's title and URL. Fantastic.

That's hardly the only change. Version 2.3 also includes a "length and progress indicator" in the form of a row of dots next to each article's title. The greater the number of dots, the longer the article. Also, the dots grow dark as you read further into the article. Now you can judge each story's length and approximate time to completion at a glance. We love it.

Other changes include a preview of the first few lines of an article on the iPhone (previously titles only), and an additional line on the iPad. The dark feature has also significantly changed on the iPhone. Now you can make adjustments without leaving the current article or, better yet, opt to have the dark theme applied automatically. If selected, the app will note the time and switch to the dark theme at night. How does it work? Instapaper 2.3 is now location-aware. Just enter your location and it will note the time of sunset.

There's so much more to this update, like Safari synchronization, meant to eliminate issues occurring when the iOS app and the web app are using different account names, plus an option to bypass the in-app browser and jump right to Mobile Safari.

Instapaper gets a lot of attention from its rabid fan base, and deservedly so; it keeps improving but never to the detriment of its usefulness.