Instapaper Update Locations

07 June 2012

A potentially useful update to the iOS Instapaper app that will, according to the settings: > […] update automatically in the background when you enter or leave certain locations, such as your home or workplace.

I often remember to update Instapaper seconds before I’m about to enter a no-signal area. With this feature, my articles should already be downloaded by the time I walk from my house to the train station.

The UI for configuring background updating in the iOS app is a little confusing: From the Instapaper “Settings, Background Update Locations” menu, toggle the “Background Updates” switch to “On”. Instapaper then asks to use your current location. Once your location is found, two new buttons are displayed beneath the toggle-switch: “Add current location” and “Clear locations”. Below these label-buttons is another label showing the street name of your current location, with a little red compass icon.

At this point I was confused about whether the app was using the location it had just found, because the list of locations only contained a single item, and I couldn’t tell visually that this location was selected. I clicked the “Add current location” button, thinking that would confirm my choice, but that started the location search all over again. Instapaper found the same location again and added this duplicate location to the list. 

I then selected “Clear locations”, and started the process again to get a single location in the list. To help confirm that the location was being used,  I switched on VoiceOver, tapped the single location label and received audio confirmation that the location was indeed, “Selected”.

It should be immediately obvious that Instapaper is using a location for background updates but this interface design confused me. Perhaps using a check mark to the right of the list item would make the selection more obvious.