Google has officially brought a Pocket-like Read Later feature to the latest version of Chrome for iOS. The feature works a lot like Apple’s Reading List feature in Safari — there’s a new “Read Later” icon that appears on the share sheet in Chrome, which saves articles locally on the device to read later, even without an internet connection.
Articles saved to the Reading List are accessible through the menu on Chrome the same way one would navigate to Bookmarks or History. Unlike Apple’s Reading List or Pocket, however, locally saved articles are only saved to the specific device (Chrome for Mac doesn’t actually support the new Reading List at all). Additionally, unlike Apple’s own Reading List or Pocket, Google’s implementation saves the entire page, instead of a stripped-down text version. Still, it’s a nice addition to the app, that helps Google maintain feature parity with Apple’s own Safari browser on iOS.
Google previously added a similar feature to Chrome for Android back in December, although it’s implemented a bit differently than the iOS version. The Android version allows users to download pages through an arrow icon in the menu, but treats saved pages like any other downloaded file, compared to the iOS version which more explicitly marks things as “read it later.”
