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Add to SafariWhen comparing Flipboard vs Instapaper, the Slant community recommends Instapaper for most people. In the question“What are the most useful Android phone apps?” Instapaper is ranked 17th while Flipboard is ranked 29th. The most important reason people chose Instapaper is:
Allows leaving notes attached to articles and highlighting certain part of the text. Free version of the app is limited to 5 highlights a month.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Very polished UI that is organized like a magazine
This app has a very polished, magazine-style layout, that is flipped through by swiping. Because of its layout, Flipboard is especially nice on tablets.
Pro Personalized magazines
Magazines is a features by Flipboard that can allow anyone to create their own personalized magazine by collecting the content from various websites and collate them into a magazine that can also be shared to other readers. Magazines can be set to either public or private access and anyone can follow the magazine.
Pro Free
Pro Cross-platform
Flipboard is available on Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows and web app.
Pro Google Reader import
There is also a simple import from Google Reader.
Pro Social network integration
Flipboard pulls information from Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. Everything is aggregated in one app, which can then be flipped through and shared, either directly on Flipboard or on social networks.
Pro Easily discover stories based on topics
Flipboard has millions of Magazines that anyone can follow, covering various subjects. Some cover general topics like home decoration, while others are immensely specific: for example, there’s one just about technological advances that extend human lifespan. All users can create their own Magazines and share them publicly, with friends, or keep them for private use.
Pro Annotation tools
Allows leaving notes attached to articles and highlighting certain part of the text. Free version of the app is limited to 5 highlights a month.
Pro Excellent typography choices
Instapaper allows you to choose from 14 different fonts, some of which have been designed specifically for the application. You can manually adjust spacing between lines, padding around text and font size to fit your preferences.
Pro Allows listening to articles
Instapaper comes with a build in text-to-speech feature that will read out loud articles. Premium version of the app allows creating playlists.
Pro Articles can be emailed to Instapaper
You can add articles to Instapaper by sending them to a unique email address associated with your account.
Pro Pagination
Allows for pagination, not just scrolling.
Pro Awesome offline mode
Pro Can look up words in a dictionary and Wikipedia
Pro Can be set to switch to dark mode based on time of day
Instapaper includes a dark theme and allows switching to it after a set period in time or gradually over the course of the day.
Pro Rarely seen organization options
In addition to allowing you to sort articles by when you saved them, you can also order articles by length or read progress and popularity.
Pro Free archiving of deleted webpages
In Pocket, this is a paid function - but Instapaper provides this for free! If a webpage is deleted, it remains in your Instapaper and they even archive pictures of the articles.
Pro Can playback inline video
Instapaper will play videos from YouTube, Vimeo and other sources that are embedded in articles, but you have to be online for playback to work.
Pro Has a font designed for readers with Dyslexia
Instapaper includes Dyslexie a font that helps people with reading problems understand the text better.
Pro Includes optional social features
If you set your Instapaper profile to be public, your friends will be able to see articles you've liked.
Cons
Con Excessive ads with no way to remove them
Flipboard doesn’t offer subscription plans, having only the completely free full version. However, it does feature ads that appear between articles and there’s no way of removing this function.
Con Needs better organization of topics, mags, users followed
When you follow 3-5 magazines per topic (sometimes more) it would be nice to be able to group some of these together in a way that constricts the 'fire hose' of content.
Con Low quality news sources
The default content is from low quality sources such as Mashable.
Con Became a paid service again
Most functions, like search, became premium.
Con Basic search not free
Basic search for link title or website too is part of the premium.
Con Embedded images and videos are sometimes ignored
Instapaper sometimes saves articles without images or videos.
Con Only supports English
It only supports English, and not Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages.
Con Tags not implemented
Con Search functions return random articles
The search function is very slow and does not provide accurate results. The user can not filter or reorder the search results, or search the archive or annotated articles.
