TL;DR: Pocket and Omnivore didn’t owe me a retirement plan—but they did owe me a quiet couch session with a saved article. They’re gone (or going). I’m building SoonRead because I’m tired of pretending a generic bookmark folder is the same thing as reading.
I’m building SoonRead because I’m missing an app that’s actually about reading: save something, open it later, and have the words—not the notifications—be the point. Pocket and Omnivore both got that instinct right enough that I relied on them for years. Now they’re missed in the same way you miss a coffee shop that closed: you don’t need the drama, you just want the ritual back.
This isn’t a pitch that you’re “the target audience” if you used either app—more like: if you ever tapped Save and meant it, you’ll waste less time explaining what SoonRead is for. You’ll get the joke faster.
SoonRead exists to answer a narrower question than “another productivity app”: what does it look like when read-it-later stays obsessed with the reading experience—layout, calm typography, sync that doesn’t get in the way, and pricing that doesn’t depend on turning your queue into engagement inventory?
That means boring reliability matters as much as splashy features: capture from the browser and phone, offline-friendly sync when the network lies, and type that still feels good at midnight. If the article looks wrong or the save fails, that’s not a minor bug—it’s the whole product breaking its promise.
I’m under no illusion that shipping once wins anything. The bar is whether SoonRead is still there when you’re ready to read next month, and whether your list still feels like yours. That’s the whole reason to build—because the apps that taught me what “read it later” could feel like are gone or fading, and I still want that feeling in my pocket.