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The Safari Reader Arms Race
JimLynch writes "Apple, by adding Reader to Safari 5, is essentially trying to force an e-book style interface onto the web reading experience. It will never work out over the long haul because web publishers will resist and the end result will be an arms race, with publishers on one side and Apple on the other." Another unmentioned issue is that sometimes it doesn't work. I've found pages where content is omitted from the reader UI.
"Safari 5, is essentially trying to force an ebook style interface onto the web reading experience"
Uhhhhh - you know it's not the default viewing format, right? So "forcing" is a bit leading.
On every page I have looked at, the reader has worked wonderfully. It may be the feature, along with clicktoflash, that moves me to safari.
Saying this will never work over the long haul is like saying the Camino will never work because it includes a default flash blocker or Firefox will never work because there are too many easily installed plugin to block ads. It is a web feature, apparently an open source web feature, and browsers that want to focus on user experiences will implement it as a default feature, just like pop up blocking. Browsers that do not implement will show themselves as front ends for advertisers, not browsers for users.
There are issues. The readers removes the branding from the site. This could be considered bad. But people will use for the same reason that some choose to use ad blocking. The articles spread out over 10 pages, with long waits for ads to load between pages, and infected ads, will give some cause to bypass the predefined interface. Like other tech, websites will adjust. After all, websites serve the customers, not the other way around.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
For use on OS-X, probably using glimmerblocker. Nice for those using multiple browsers since it runs as proxy. Also never becomes incompatible between Safari versions (add-on experience in Safari has been less than ideal during transitions).
Fear is the mind killer.
There is a even a firefox addon for Readability.
Safari has apparently taken the code from Readability (it says so in the credits).
Whilst I accept that a lot of people presume that the HTML served from their web server is going to be rendered as they intended in the client browser, that is not, and should not be a foregone conclusion. HTML describes content - it is then for the client browser to render that content. Extracting just the content I am interested in is surely a valid use of that content, and unless web sites start to use a different model for their content (i.e. restrictive) then this should not really be a surprise.
I have used Reader, and I personally like it, but I have only used in on a handful of websites that are chock-full of spurious crap other than the content I am interested in.
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
This simply is not true.
The reader is only invoked after the precious page view, and ad-load (provided one isn't blocking ads in their hosts file -- many regular ad blockers extensions simply disappear the ads, not block them). SO how is an ad-based web site affected? Maybe by increased readership because now their articles which are in shitty typography to begin with and are littered with blinking ads are now actually readable!?
What Apple has done is neither unfair or harmful to web sites. Period.
I also use InstaPaper or use the print format to read an article free of all the crap and poor typography.
The web site owners have reason to be peeved - if the user uses reader extensively, for web sites that are ad-based, they have no revenue stream
That's not correct. The page loads initially with all the ads intact; the "Reader" is an option that can only be invoked after the page loads so the site owner gets the same revenue regardless of whether the viewer uses it or not.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Yes, there's a reason that it does nearly the same thing. Apple's Reader uses code from Readability. Apple credits them in their license agreement and the developers over at Arc90 are happy that Apple is using their code:
Why We Built Readability
By Rich Ziade
As we've already mentioned, we couldn't be happier that Apple has chosen to leverage our own Readability as a native feature in the Safari browser. As the debate around Safari Reader heats up, we thought we'd chime in and share some of our thoughts, motivations and aspirations for what reading can become on the Web.
Sapere aude!
I find current magazines to be close to intolerable because of advertisements (and that's a case where you are purportedly paying for the content!) Not only is a serious portion of the space dedicated to ads, many of them trying their best to confuse you into thinking they're content, they lead to other insidious behaviors-
-Magazines often cut out a large percentage of page numbers specifically to force you to scan through ads. It's also why they split stories. The ad companies have a lot of research driving this.
-You have a conflict of interest when the authors' jobs depend upon the people they're talking about in many cases. Many computer-related magazines were well known for soft-balling companies that advertised heavily.
Advertisements suck. They pervert the entire content system.