RIP Pocket

A while back, I wrote about my history with e-readers, and highlighted in particular the Pocket app that’s available on Kobo devices. I named it “Kobo’s killer app,” because I think that e-readers hit their sweet spot with long articles: for shorter pieces, I can live with the slight eyestrain of reading on a phone or computer screen, and for full-length books, I’ll always prefer a physical copy. For me, e-readers are perfect for the in-between articles and essays that can be read in 15-30 minutes, and Pocket is the key piece of software that makes it happen. That is, until now.

Sadly, the Pocket service will be shutting down. There are other alternatives for saving articles, but there’s no (easy) way to access them on the Kobo.

What to do? Luckily, the open-source community comes to the rescue.

Wallabag is a program that can save web pages for later reading, just like Pocket does. You can run your own server, either on a home machine or in the cloud, so you’re not chained to any company that may require subscriptions or cease to exist someday. I’ve deployed my own instance using Fly.io. Saved articles can be downloaded using an iOS or Android app (also open-source) for offline reading.

The final link in the chain is getting the saved articles onto the Kobo. Enter KOReader, a sort-of Swiss Army Knife of reading apps. Among many other things, it can download and view articles from a Wallabag server. Somehow, the developers managed to find a way to install this app on Kobo devices, which isn’t an open platform as far as I can tell.

Unfortunately, the whole process requires some technical expertise, and if I’m honest, the UI/UX of both Wallabag and KOReader are mediocre. But I’m still happy that I was able to do this, so that the value of my Kobo reader didn’t immediately diminish.