Pocket for Apple iOS, Android, Kindle Fire: App of the Day (freeware review)

My choice for today’s app of the day is Idea Shower’s Pocket.

This free app — available for the Apple iPhone and iPad, Android, and for your web bbrowser — is a must-have for saving articles and websites you like for future viewing.

Browsers have built-in Favorites and Bookmarks that were created for this purpose, of course. But these lists quickly become a jumble of links. The Reading List in Safari is a step forward, too, but I find Pocket to be a big improvement over anything I’ve seen. I find it better and more useful than the Reading List feature in Safari, too.

Pocket — previously called Read it Later — has a new look now. But it still lets you put a “bookmarklet” on your bookmark toolbar in any browser. And it syncs with an app on your portable device. I always liked Pocket in its Read It Later form. But the new version, Pocket, is really exceptional.

Pocket is a fitting name because you can put just about anything in the app’s pocket. The service still works through a bookmarklet that you drag to your browser and through apps for iPhone, iPad, Android and for the Amazon Kindle tablet

If you see an article you like, just add it to your Pocket and it will appear for reading later on all of your devices. Improvements in the new Pocket include: the ability to save articles, images and videos. Check out how the layout looks, below. I find it to be visually appealing and organized, too.

You’re able to set favorites, archive articles and search using your keyboard. Better still, more than 280 apps — including Pulse, Flipboard and The Onion — support it seamlessly. .

If you like you can also view your Pocket articles in a text format, as shown below.

I’ve been using Pocket and its predecessor for months now and found only two drawbacks. Its instructions aren’t as clear as I like. It never, for instance, tells you that you on your computer you must visit your Pocket Queue to see what you have saved. The other issue I have has to do with its inability to properly work with Safari on iOS.

That said, you can always email the webpage to your Pocket account and work around the issue, as I do.

Still, those are small drawbacks compared to how useful and capable this  app is. I highly recommend Pocket for iOS, Android and the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. It’s free. You don’t get much better bang for the buck than that.