Pocket redefines its mobile apps to focus on listening

Pocket, which allows you to save articles and videos on your devices for later viewing, is now rethinking its design with a focus on listening to items that you save. The listening feature, which relies on a new integration with Polly's voice synthesis service from Amazon, aims to turn your queue into articles into a "personal podcast" you organize yourself, "says Managing Director Nate Weiner. It is released today on iOS and Android.

The company, which belongs to Mozilla, also announces its first Alexa skill. Add it to your Alexa-enabled device and you'll be able to access your Pocket items wherever you are with a smart speaker.

This redesign represents the first major visual change brought to Pocket since 2012, when the company changed its name to Call Read Later. It reduces the density of application information to the benefit of more whitespace and slightly larger tags. Personally, I liked the denser version of Pocket, but the new look is likely to appeal to many users because it is more relaxing to read and watch.

"It's a dedicated and quiet place to read, think and learn new things," says Weiner. "That's why people use it. They save things that fascinate them and become better people. We take this responsibility very seriously to complete this loop, "

Pocket users can be voracious readers and often save more articles in the application than they will ever finish with reading. This prompted the company to revisit its voice synthesis feature, first introduced in 2012. While the feature has its fans, the robotic voice comes straight from Radiohead. Ok computer.

With the new design, the listening function now looks like a modern podcast application, with buttons for moving forward and controls for adjusting the speed of the recording. As soon as one article ends, the next one starts to play. It does not yet support offline listening, but it will happen soon, Weiner says. In the meantime, if you start listening to an article before your subway passes on the subway or if you lose connectivity for a short time, the article you are listening to should still be played until you reach the end of the day. end, he adds.

The new listening feature, which includes both male and female voices, makes the story more natural. In the future, Pocket could experiment with the use of human voices to record featured articles, Weiner explains.

With Pocket's new Alexa skill, this listening can now spread at home. Say "Tell Pocket to retrieve my items" and your Alexa device will read anything you've saved to your phone or tablet.

"Text reading will not go away," says Weiner. "But as we get more and more busy, and that there is more and more content, one of the most important things you hear is:" I have too much saved for Pocket. "We hope to open and release this content for you to consume – in a way that you have not been able to before."