Instapaper 3.0 adds social features, new sharing options

Marco Arment has released a major update to Instapaper, his acclaimed offline reading application for iOS devices. Instapaper 3.0 adds an entirely new social recommendation system to the service, allowing users to “follow” other Instapaper users by finding friends via Facebook, Twitter or e-mail using the iOS device Contacts list. “Starred” items from the prior version has been renamed “Liked” items to make the feature more clear, and liked items are automatically shared with followers. The new version also includes native offline sharing with Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinboard and Evernote and a new in-app browser that allows users to find and save content for later reading from directly within the app. Additional enhancements include a new storage engine with perfect image quality, faster downloads, faster page-rendering and less space usage and a smart rotation lock feature that attempts to detect accidental rotations. Several new preferences and numerous other fixes and improvements are included. Instapaper is a universal app and is available from the App Store for $5.