Pocket Review – Save Interesting Web Content for Later

excellent
key review info
application features
  • Intuitive interface
  • (5 more, see all...)

The Internet is filled with useful information, interesting articles and webpages, impressive pictures and captivating videos that might capture our attention between daily tasks. Most of the times, we come across compelling content when we are engaged in other activities that do not allow us to promptly view, read or watch the found material.

Fortunately, there are numerous Mac OS X applications that make it possible for you to save your discoveries and access them during your free time. Pocket is one of those apps, offering you the option to “pocket” the found article, image, website or video in order to read it, view it or watch it later from within a minimalist-looking user interface.

The light and practical application is freely available and can be quickly and effortlessly installed on your Mac via the Mac App Store, with just a few clicks of a mouse button. It is worth mentioning that your Mac needs to run Mac OS X 10.7 or later and have a 64-bit processor.

To start using Pocket, you first have to create an account directly from within the application or sign in using your credentials, in case you already have an account.

Instantly grab and store multimedia content directly from any web browser

Novice users will be happy to know that Pocket comes with a built-in tutorial that presents different ways in which articles, images and videos can be saved from their favorite web browser. Hence, you can use the browser extensions for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Opera, as well as bookmarklets, which are compatible with all existing browsers.

Moreover, Pocket is capable to grab URLs from your Mac’s clipboard and update your read-it-later list with new content with the help of its iOS and Android mobile apps. You can even save items to Pocket by sending an email from an email address associated with your Pocket account.

It goes without saying that all stored content is automatically synchronized across your devices, and it is also made available via the web.

The great thing about Pocket is that all stored articles are displayed, by default, in an optimized view that removes the clutter from the original page. This function is similar to the Reader in Safari and the Readability browser bookmarklet that allows you to view only the content you are interested in.

During our testing period, this feature really proved its practicality as it made it much easier for us to read articles and avoid distractions such as advertisements or pop-ups. We were also pleased to discover that all optimized articles are downloaded and made available for offline reading.

Although you need an Internet connection to switch back to the original view and see the full page, we find the offline reading mode a useful feature that allows you to read articles while you are on the go.

Easily change the text size, font and alignment based on your preferences

On top of that, Pocket enables you to rapidly change the typography and adjust the text size, typeface and switch between left and print-style justified alignments. However, we would have liked Pocket even more if it featured different reading modes similar to the ones provided by the iOS application.

For example, the Sepia, Dark or Light modes featured by the iOS version of Pocket make it easy for you to read the saved articles under different lighting conditions. Hopefully, future versions of the desktop application will also include these display modes and even more.

Each stored item is accompanied by user-definable tags, web address and a thumbnail that is automatically generated by Pocket. For most of the saved articles and videos, Pocket managed to generate and display a thumbnail using an image from the source page. Nonetheless, in various instances, Pocket failed to grab a picture in order to display a thumbnail.

Even though Pocket is capable to store video links and enables you to play them directly from within the app, you cannot watch saved videos without an Internet connection. This minor oversight might annoy the users who want to bookmark YouTube, Vimeo and dailymotion videos, albeit it might not be a welcomed addition since it will have a direct impact over the speed of the synchronization process.

As it is, the video saving feature works pretty well when playing the multimedia content from the optimized view mode. On the other hand, when switching to the original view mode, the video player no longer works and you cannot preview the content.

Send any stored article to Evernote or share it via supported social networking services

On the bright side, the simple and intuitive interface is great to interact with and offers you instant access to great tools designed to help you archive, search, filter and share content via Twitter, Facebook, Buffer and Mail.

Finding and filtering articles and pages could not be easier thanks to the support for tags and the built-in search form. By assigning tags to your articles, you can decrease search times and enjoy a better organized read-it-later list.

Pocket’s usability is also sustained by the article management system that helps you “Star” your favorite articles, archive or delete the read content. Furthermore, you can use the Share drop-down menu to send articles to Evernote, open them in your default web browser or copy the source link to the clipboard.

As an added benefit, Pocket proved to be very kind to our Mac’s resources and managed to perform various tasks without stressing the CPU too much. As follows, we witnessed CPU spikes of 22% during video playback and while switching between the article optimized view and the original view mode.

While idle, Pocket dropped the CPU load to 0%, while the RAM usage fluctuated between 70 MB and 100 MB during usage. The values presented above were recorded on a Mid 2007 iMac with a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 6 GB of RAM.


The Good

To sum things up, Pocket is a smooth-running and very easy-to-use Mac OS X application that offers you numerous ways to save your discoveries for later reading and a well-thought-out management system.

What makes Pocket appealing and a good alternative to other similar applications is the wide support for numerous web browsers along with the mobile versions of the app and a minimalistic design that helps you focus on the content and avoid distractions.

The Bad

Like with most applications available on the market, there is always room for improvements and Pocket makes no exception. Thus, implementing different, customizable viewing modes could significantly improve the reading experience.

Even if Pocket’s interface is uncluttered and user-oriented, there is still some work that needs to be done regarding the thumbnail generation issue encountered during our tests.

The Truth

All things considered, Pocket is a streamlined and reliable application that offers a simple and practical solution for all users looking for an application capable to grab, save, store and share content from the web in online as well as offline mode.

user interface 4
features 4
ease of use 5
pricing / value 5


final rating 5
Editor's review
excellent
 
NEXT REVIEW: Fluid

Pocket Screenshots (10 Images)

View, read and share "pocketed" articles
Filter displayed entries using tagsView all your favorites and archived articlesQuickly change the text size and fontAdd and edit tags with ease
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