Welcome to the second issue of Homescreen, and Merry Christmas! Here you can find ideas, thoughts and reasons why I choose which app deserves to stay on my phone and my tablet (and of course I didn’t write this today!).

This week, I get mad at Omnivore for shutting down and talk about my never-ending quest to find the ultimate read-it later app.

Omnivore shut down, and I’m mad

I’m always looking for the best read-it-later app. At the beginning of last year, I found Reader by Readwise to be just the one I was looking for, and I willingly paid the 90€/year of subscription for the value that I got.

But then, just around half through this year, I started re-thinking about how much money I was spending, and I wanted to cut some recurring expenses. One of them was Reader, for which I thought 90€ per year were a lot of money, even though I use it every single day.

I was also in my ‘open source’ phase, that happens every now and then, in which I get tired of giving my data to closed source platforms and want to escape and break free using open source ones.

Omnivore seemed the perfect alternative: open source, no subscription for the hosted app, and I only had to sacrifice one of my workflows to use it properly. I could save from an extension in every OS on any browser, use tags to filter efficiently if I needed to search something after, and it also had a very good text-to-speech software, made by ElevenLabs. Everything was so good, I was starting to first use Omnivore as my main read-it-later app, then I would migrate everything I had on Reader.

But, just as I was starting to migrate, I got this email from Jackson Harper, one of the two founders of Omnivore:

Hi all-

We’re excited to share that Omnivore is joining forces with ElevenLabs, the leading AI audio research and technology company. Our team is joining ElevenLabs to help drive the future of accessible reading and listening with their new ElevenReader app.

As part of the ElevenLabs team, we’ll have an even larger platform to create accessible and engaging experiences for serious readers. We came to know ElevenLabs by integrating their ultra realistic AI voices into Omnivore—soon enough, listening to articles and books with ElevenLabs voices became one of our most popular features in Omnivore. We’re thrilled about this opportunity, and we wanted to share some info that’s important for you to know. 

First, all Omnivore users are invited to create a free account with ElevenReader. Our team has already shipped valuable updates to the ElevenReader app, and it’s incredibly powerful as a go-to reader and audio listening app that’s free […]

Next, all Omnivore users will be able to export their information from the service through November 15 2024, after which all information will be deleted. 

Lastly, ElevenLabs is committed to the developer community and the Omnivore codebase will remain 100% open-source for all users. This decision ensures that the broader development community can continue to build upon and improve Omnivore’s technology.
For more information about ElevenLabs and the ElevenReader app, or to experience the power of AI-driven Text to Speech technology, visit elevenlabs.io. […]

Onwards,
Jackson &

I was very mad when I got this letter, saying they’re shutting down.

First, i got this on October 29th, and I only had two weeks to migrate everything before the complete shutdown of the service on November 15th.

Of course I didn’t migrate anything - I didn’t have the time, as just those days I was traveling in Thailand for work and couldn’t really sit for a couple of hours and do everything. Fortunately, I also didn’t save a lot of stuff there, so I guess I only lost a couple of weeks of articles and blog posts.

But still, it makes me wonder: is our data ever safe if platforms can just shut down and take all our data with them in their grave?

This is why I love blockchain - eventually, someone will make a read-it-later app that saves documents onchain directly, so it’s highly unlikely that they’ll get lost - the whole blockchain needs to shut down.

But in the meantime, I had to get back to the desk, and search for my new app.

On a quest for the ultimate read-it-later app

For now, I decided that I will simply go back to Reader by Readwise, even though it’s very expensive. It’s the safest option that I know, because even though the Reader app is fairly recent, the Readwise platform has been around for almost a decade.

In the 10 years I’ve been working in tech, I’ve tried any kind of read-it-later app, and also used other type of apps as read-it-later to understand if they could be adapted.

I tried Evernote in 2014, then I switched to Reeder in 2015 and 2016, but then I briefly used Pocket and Instapaper, eventually using Pocket until 2020, when I ported all my stuff over to Matter, that is really good because it has a very clean user interface and good text-to-speech software. It recently also transcribes podcast episodes and is pushing for AI features.

But none of these could really satisfy me, mainly because I needed a tool that could help me with my information overload. I see and read a lot of stuff, roughly 2 hours every day, and I’m very curious about things that I don’t know about, so I needed a way to filter everything that I needed to read from the things that I wanted to.

Then, in 2022, I found that Readwise was extending invites for a new app in beta, Reader. Readwise is known for its highlighting features that sync across many platforms, and who better than them can build an app to read efficiently?

I fell in love with Reader when I found out about the two pre-defined lists it has: Later and Shorlist.

So, this is my workflow:

• Every day I wake up and look at my Reader Feed tab, which lists articles coming from various sources I set in advance, and newsletter which issues I may like

• Everything I find interesting in the Feed, I save to Later using a pre-set swipe gesture

• Right after, I check my Later list and put the most important articles of the day or week in my Shortlist. If it’s in the Shortlist, it means that it needs my attention either today or this week at most

• In the afternoon and on weekends, I go through the articles in the Shortlist

• Usually on Sundays, I go to the Later list and select which articles need my attention over the following week

I try to read everything I save twice a year: before the summer holiday, and before the year ends. It helps me start fresh when I get back.

I used to use tags on articles, so that I can pull what I need faster, but I don’t use that anymore, because I highlight what I need and sync back to Readwise, which I can use as a quotes reviewer.

I’m happy, yes, but my dream would be a read-it-later app that

• Posts content onchain (so it never expires)

• Is open source, so I can host it myself if I want, and customize as I need

• Uses standard markdown or plain text, so that it’s easy to use with other tools

• Uses on-device AI to help me find what I need in the content of the documents

• Uses a token as a revenue model, and not a subscription, so that I can participate in the growth of the platform

• Has LLM-grade text-to-speech

I know a lot about this, but I haven’t got the time to do it honestly. Also, my job is to get ideas out there, and someone will pick them up.

I’ll always look for the best read-it-later app, because I’m an avid reader. But I also like the text-to-speech feature, because I don’t always want to stare at a screen, and most articles are really long.

For now, I’ve settled. And I put it on my Home Screen, next to Day One, another app I use literally every single day to journal.

But that’s maybe for another issue.

Thanks for reading!

If you find read-it-later apps worth looking at, don’t hesitate to shoot an email to hey@jaack.me

I’m also available for brainstorming on the ideal read-it-later app, built onchain-first and open source.