“Reading List” spotted in Lion Safari

Mac Rumors has discovered a new feature in Lion’s build of Safari named “Reading List.”

The service is inactive at this point, but is described by Apple as:

“Reading List lets you collect webpages and links for you to read later. To add the current page to your Reading List, click Add Page. You can also Shift-click a link to quickly add it to the list. To hide and show Reading List, click the Reading List icon (eyeglasses) in the bookmarks bar.”

I’m not sure that this is an Instapaper-killer, as some have suggested.

For one, this service just seems like a way to capture URLs. No information has come out about the ability to strip just the text out of articles, as other services do. Also, there doesn’t seem to be any built-in syncing for Apple’s new feature, either.

It really just seems like “Reading List” is a way to quickly store temporary bookmarks to re-visit.

Marco Arment, the creator of Instapaper doesn’t seem worried, either.

This reminds me of Apple’s current RSS integration in Mail and Safari. While MobileMe can sync the bookmarked feeds, read states aren’t shared between Macs, and there’s no iOS integration. Clearly, with the popularity of NetNewsWire and Reeder, Apple’s feature is something that the average user may take advantage of, but is far too simple and underwhelming for power users.

Article Via TUAW

Stephen Hackett, formerly a Lead Mac Genius at Apple, now spends his days running the IT department of a large non-profit in Memphis, TN. He writes about Apple, design and journalism at forkbombr.net. Like all twenty-somethings, you can find him on Twitter. Oh, and he has a dogcow tattoo.