Pocket for Android: Daily App Pick

Posted By Sandy Berger in App Picks, Mobile, Tech

BreakingModern — Pocket by Read It Later, Inc. is a great way to save articles and videos for viewing at some later time. Whether you want to capture articles on your computer or phone during the day to read on your tablet in the evening or to capture articles on your computer, tablet, or phone to read when you don’t have an Internet connection, Pocket will perform flawlessly. It’s a free app available on Android for Google Play, Apple iOS, Mac and Amazon tablets and phones. It can also be used as an extension or bookmarklet for many different browsers, making sure you’ll never miss an article or video.

The World in Your Pocket

Once installed, you can simply touch the Share icon when you are browsing the Web on your mobile device and choose “Add to Pocket.” If you’re using a computer, just click on the Pocket icon on the toolbar. You are then able to add tags to the article, which help you find the articles you saved once you’re ready to read.

Pocket can be integrated with more than 500 apps, such as Twitter, Pulse, and Flipboard. Just visit the settings of the app you want to use with Pocket and configure it to use Pocket as your Read It Later app. Then you can add items to Pocket directly from that app. If the app you want to grab something from doesn’t support Pocket, you can send a link to the article to [email protected] and it will be added to your reading list.

Pocket does a great job of helping its customers. When you sign up you are presented with instructions on how the app works. In some cases, you can even email the instructions to yourself so you can keep them handy.

Once you open and read any article, you can archive it by simply tapping the checkmark button. You can also email the article to a friend, share it in a Message or add it to Facebook, Google+ or your Google Drive. Those are just a few of the options. In fact, this Pocket app can be integrated with so many other apps and services that you would likely never be without it, which is truly amazing.

When you access the Pocket app itself you can get to your list of articles, videos and images. If you have marked the article as a Favorite you can access it quickly from the main area. You can also scroll though the tags you’ve created to find the article you want. You can also search from your main list page.

Pocket’s interface is slightly different depending on which device and which operating system you are using, but all are similar.

Pocket also has a premium version for $4.99 a month or $44.99 a year. This version has extended search capabilities and convenient suggested tags, but the most useful feature of the premium version is its ability to store a permanent copy of what you save so that it’s always accessible. That works even if the article or video is changed or deleted from the Web. If you’ve ever done extensive research on a topic only to find that some of your links no longer work, this can be wonderful.

In fact, the Pocket app is a wonderfully useful app and our Daily App pick. Download it today.

For BMod, I’m Sandy Berger.

All screenshots: Sandy Berger

Featured/Header image: “52 Project - Week 01” by Jeremy Jenum via Flickr Creative Commons