Pocket for iPhone and iPad review

By Leanna Lofte
last updated

Put all the articles, videos, and pictures that you can't get to now, right into your Pocket so you can enjoy them later

The service formerly known as Read It Later has been updated with a new look, a new name, and a new price -- it's called Pocket, and it's free! With Pocket, you can save articles, photos, videos, and just about anything you encounter on the web and social networks for offline viewing at your leisure and convenience, on your iPhone, iPad, or other devices.

  • Watch our video interview with Pocket found Nate Weiner, and developer Max Weiner

The new layout on the iPad has a collage-sytle interface that gives spotlight to the images associated with the articles you save. It's very pretty and especially nice for users who plan to save a lot of images (from, say, Flickr) to their Pocket account. But this layout comes at the expense of informational density. Images take up more space than words, after all. So, Pocket also has a list view. This list view also displays small thumbnail images with each item, but it's a lot more condense than the other view. It's also the only view available on the iPhone. Personally, I really like seeing the images, but I'm sure there are users that would prefer a concise, text-only list -- which is not available.

You can sort your saved items in Pocket by articles, videos, or images, and you can also choose to allow Pocket to decided the best view to download for each item. In Article View, all the ads and sidebars of the original website are stripped away, leaving just the content of the article. It looks very nice.

If the saved item is not an article, Pocket will display the content in its original web view. Unfortunately, not all website articles are correctly being registered as articles by Pocket and default to Web View.

When viewing an article, there are options to adjust the font size and type, screen brightness, and toggle night time reading mode. Unfortunately, there are only two fonts to toggle at this time.

The Good

  • Beautiful design
  • New layout displays images and short excerpts of saved items
  • Condensed list view with thumbnails available
  • Sort by articles, videos, images, or all items
  • Adjust font size
  • Night reading mode
  • Supported by hundreds of apps

The Bad

  • Only two fonts
  • There isn't a simple list view without images available
  • Doesn't always recognize articles as articles

The bottom line

Pocket is a great way to save content from the web for viewing at a later time. The interface is both functional and pretty while still being extremely simple to use. It is also already supported by hundreds of apps (most of which still refer to the service as "Read It Later", but that should change quickly). Now that it's free, there's no reason to at least give it a try!

Free - Download Now (opens in new tab)

Leanna Lofte
Leanna Lofte

Former app and photography editor at iMore, Leanna has since moved on to other endeavors. Mother, wife, mathamagician, even though she no longer writes for iMore you can still follow her on Twitter @llofte.

16 Comments
  • It's a nice app, and the whole process of getting a new account and setting up in various apps to "pocket" articles sets a new high standard.
    However, a big con is that pocket doesn't support a mobile Safari bookmark-let to save a web page. This something that Instapaper, for example, provides. It works like a button on the bookmark bar. Sure, you can send an email with the article, but that just isn't easy. Until this is fixed, Pocket will not reach the audience it deserves.
  • Tap Pocket at the top > Help > How to Save :)
  • Yes it does support a mobile bookmark. There are step-by-step instructions in the app on how to set this up. Click the bookmark labeled "Save to Pocket" and whatever page you are on is saved,
  • Yes, it's there in help. Stumbled into it; was coming back to say so, but iMore was on it!.
    The bookmarklet isn't in the tutorial, though.. I'd suggest Pocket it add it instead of the email instruction they give you.
    Overall, a good app.
  • Have to admit the initial setups were a little tricky but overall I'm thrilled with this app. I'm a newbie to IOS (android convert) and this takes Chrome to Phone which I missed a lot to a whole new level. Thanks to the getpocket team for making this app and many thanks to the imore team for all of their great work. I really love this site.
  • Brilliant marketing idea in going from a name that tells you exactly what an app does to an ambiguous one that could refer to anything.
  • I love the app but that icon geesh!
    No offense but not every idevice user is gay, pink with a rainbow on the bottom? I hope they change it.
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  • On a Mac you can also apply this by pressingControl-Option-Command-8
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