Tools of My Trade: Day 6 Pocket

Last year one of my featured tools was Flipboard and I still love that app and use it all the time on my iPad. It’s like reading a magazine instead of ugly news feeds from Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader. For this year I found something else that is kind of related to Flipboard, but different. It’s Pocket (formerly named Read It Later). And good news, it’s not just for iOS, it also works for Android and Kindle Fire!

Today’s favorite tool is perfect for offline use. Find an article online or a blog post you want to save and read later? Maybe while you’re commuting on the train to work? Save it to Pocket. It will be available for off line reading anytime anywhere. Log into your Pocket account on your computer at home or at work, and your saved items are there. Open the Pocket app on your iPad, even without wifi (such as while you’re on a plane), your saved items are there too! Open it on your iPhone while waiting in the dentist’s office, your reading materials will be there!

Are you done with a specific article after reading it? Delete it. Is it something you’d like to keep? You can do that too, as well as tag it so you can find and organize your saved docs more easily.

I have the Pocket App installed on my iPad, and it’s connected to Flipboard, so I can easily save an interesting blogpost for later reading with a single click of the READ LATER button. I have +Pocket installed on the toolbar of my web browser. In the old days I would have saved the link to the article in my Bookmarks and would have had to go back on the web to find it later. Now, it’s waiting for me in Pocket anywhere.