Sure, iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 aren’t as exciting as some of the other previous releases from Apple, but I’ve still been looking forward to their release over the past few months. I didn’t bother installing any Developer or Public betas until the fourth or the fifth one in the cycle, that too only on my 10.5-inch iPad Pro. So I’m going in with relatively fresh eyes.
There are some remarkable updates being rolled out today by various developers that I’ve been beta testing over the last two months. Similarly, our team at Readdle is shipping a slew of incredible features as well, for our Spark, Documents, PDF Expert, Calendars and Scanner Pro apps. It’s been a massive effort to deliver these updates on Day 1, and everyone is excited to hear your feedback. Try them out, we’re sure you’re gonna love it.
Bron Gondwana, CEO of FastMail, explains on the company blog why “Now more than ever, it’s time for email.“
He says,
Through all the interruptions and turmoil in your life, email is a constant. Everyone has email, and every email system can email every other. It lets us stay connected, but doesn’t demand an immediate response. You can read it in your own time, and have the space to craft a thoughtful reply.
The beauty of Email is that you can use it in your own way. While it’s a great form of asynchronous communication, it’s also a fantastic tool for collaborating with your team and getting work done much faster. At Readdle, we have been working on some exceptional new things for Spark that we can’t wait to show you.
I have been using FastMail as my primary email service provider for several years now, and it is worth every $$. It’s great to see an email service so focused on privacy and core email experience. FastMail has been rock solid over the years and I urge you to consider it. If you sign up using this link, you’ll get 10% off.
We, at Readdle, have just shipped a massive update to PDF Expert for iOS that introduces Reading Mode — a feature that improves the experience of reading PDFs on iPhone. Reading Mode makes it easier to read the text from PDFs on the tiny iPhone screen. I’ve been playing around with this feature for a few weeks now as part of the marketing team, and have been terribly excited about its release. With Reading Mode, reading PDFs on iPhone is a delightful experience now.
Read PDFs on iPhone
PDFs are usually hard to read on the small screens of iPhones, especially the ones that are formatted in multiple columns. You have to constantly keep zooming in & out, panning in all four directions to make sense of the content. The Reading Mode reformats and adjusts the text and images in these PDF files and displays them on the screen in a single column, presented in a beautiful way. It’s like activating the Reader view in Safari or using Read Later apps like Pocket or Instapaper. Here’s what that looks like in practice.
You can change the theme from the default ‘Day‘ theme to ‘Sepia‘, ‘Night‘ or ‘Auto‘. You can also adjust the font-size and toggle the ‘Keep iPhone Awake‘ and ‘Crop Header and Footer‘ settings.
My dad loves to read, and spends several hours in the day reading e-papers, PDF books & magazines, blogs, etc. on his iPad. For many months now, he’s been asking me, complaining in fact, why he can’t enjoy reading PDFs on his Android phone. I think it’s time to switch him to an iPhone.
There are a lot more exciting features that we’re working on at Readdle, and I can’t wait to talk about our feature-packed upcoming releases. Stay tuned to our PDF Expert, Spark Email, and Readdle blogs in the coming weeks.
Now go grab the latest update of PDF Expert for iOS from the App Store to try out the Reading Mode on your iPhone. I’m happy to hear your feedback.
