In the latest round of iOS hits making the pilgrimage to Android (and taking a lot less time than that other one) Readability has announced that it will be available on the Google Play Store on Monday, March 12th. The free app is a certified hit on the iPhone and iPod touch, thanks to its ability to reformat web content into a more, well, readable presentation. It’s not the only app that does it, nor is it the first, but it’s been a long time coming and should be a boon to iOS converts.
Readability extracts the written content of a news or blog post (like this one right here) and presents it without photos or ads, with black text on a white background. This is somewhat controversial in the web publishing community, since most news sites (again, like this one) get most if not all of their revenue from advertising. But on Android it’s something of a moot point: there’s already ways for both basic and advanced users to block ads in both the browser and separate apps. Readability still includes a web view on each page.
There are plenty of apps that beat Readability to Android, not the least of which is Google’s own Currents. There are a few like the well-received ReadIt that are almost feature-perfect translations. Since Readability is already free it will almost certainly remain so on Android, though the developer asks for a $4.99 donation via an in-app menu. That’ll probably mean a “donation version” will be available when it lands next Monday.
