Quick Reads for iOS just got a ton of updates
Guys, I love the web. I love using the web. I love developing for the web. I just think the web is awesome. As such, new features for Quick Reads tend to release on the web first, with the iOS features following later. I'm happy to say that a new update is out now for iPhone and iPad that make a lot of improvements to the experience.
Feeds match the web
Over the weekend, I completely revamped how feeds work on the web. Instead of adding every single item to your reading queue, these will now populate a river of news that you can go to whenever you want and save things to your queue for later. This isn't a full RSS app, but I think it will work for folks who have a smaller number of feeds that they can check in on on a regular basis.
You can now also manage your subscribed feeds from the app rather than doing this on the web.
The UI matches the web
I'm really proud of and happy with the UI of the web app. I think it's playful and distinct and just a breath of fresh air in the space. None of that playfulness or tactility carried over to the iOS app, which is a 100% native app. That lets it stand out from others in the space, but it's also meant that it looks like a collection of stock UI components. Some people like that, but I wanted to bring some of the character of the web app into the iOS app.
With this update, you'll immediately notice that all of the article lists and feeds align much more with the web experience.
Podcasts get a player
When saving a new feed, you are allowed to mark it as a podcast, in which case it will get a custom audio player complete with chapters and show notes. This now applies to the app as well. So when you listen to a podcast episode, you can get a full screen, now plain view, and you can swipe over to see chapters and skip to them quickly.
Text-to-speech level ups
Quick Reads comes with six voices you can choose from for text-to-speech, and now you can choose your voice in the app. This was previously exclusive to the web.
Word highlighting is purple rather than gray now, which makes it stand out a bit better.
Backend changes have been made to try to reduce the latency from tapping play to having the first word spoken to you (web users will reap these benefits as well).
Reading queue sorting
By default, your reading queue is sorted with the newest stuff at the top, but there are alternate sorting options available now. If you'd prefer, you can sort by reading time or alphabetically.
Custom swipe actions
You can swipe left and right on articles to do things like archive, delete, or open them in your browser. But if you want to do something else, you can now customize your swipe actions in the app settings. I think I got pretty much everything people could want, but if anything's missing, please let me know.
Improved speed
Performance isn't a problem until it is, and a few inefficiencies in how I was pulling data for things like the archive in the app were fine when the service was new and users didn't have a lot saved, but now that some users have upwards of 10,000 links saved to their account, a few things needed to be optimized. I won't bore you with the details, but a combination of updates to the backend query logic as well as updates to take advantage of those improvements in the app itself combine for much improved performance as you switch from tab to tab, even when you have a really large account.
All of this is available now in Quick Reads for iOS. Check it out!