Safari Reader

[tobyaw]

With all the excitement about new iPhones and iOS 4 being announced by Apple yesterday, it may be easy to miss the release of Safari 5. But it has some good improvements - JavaScript speed, HTML5 support, and an extension system - and one compelling new feature: Safari Reader.

Safari Reader displays the content of a suitable web page, while ignoring the clutter around it (links, adverts, menus, headers, comments). It also stitches together multi-part articles. So far it has worked well on content I've viewed on The Register, LiveJournal, the BBC News site, and The Spectator. I think I'll get into the habit of hitting command-shift-R to go into reader mode whenever I view a web page.

Comments

[ggreig]

That sounds like Readability. Good for Apple if they can make it acceptable; I suspect that's the type of "innovation" that would bring howls of legal protest if certain other companies tried it on.

[tobyaw]

Yes, it looks rather similar. Of course, we may see websites sabotaging it by messing up the markup of their pages.

[tobyaw]

The Register cover the feature with some comments on legal issues.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/08/safari_5_reader/

[tobyaw]

Ha! My third reply to your comment. Turns out it is actually based on the Readability code.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/08/safari_reader_based_on_open_source_project/

[ggreig]

That just shows what a fine quality comment it was. :-)

I've enjoyed reading your replies.