Browse More Efficiently on Your iPad or iPhone Using the Reading List

Browsers these days are blessed with the ability to have many webpages open across a number of tabs and mobile devices are no different. However, in the case of iOS devices you’re not going to be able to open perhaps the twenty or thirty tabs you might do on your desktop or laptop computer.

Furthermore, web browsing may not necessarily be a linear activity. While you are browsing you might find something you might want to read but you don’t want to deviate from your current line of browsing just yet. On a regular computer you can just open up a link in a new tab and get around to it but on a mobile device you may be limited to how many tabs you can open (usually around nine tabs before they dropped in favour of newer content).

So how do you workaround this limitation on iOS?

Well, if you have iOS 5 on your device there is a new feature in Safari called the “Reading List”. Think of it as a temporary list of bookmarks you can create while you are browsing and then read through later on. It saves you having to juggle precious tabs and remember where you saw something you might have wanted to read but couldn’t (or didn’t want to) accomodate at the time.

All you need to do to add an item to the “Reading List” in Safari is hold your finger on top of a link until the menu comes up and choose “Add to Reading List” from the options. It should then jump up to the bookmarks button. To browse your Reading List just tap on the bookmarks button and then the “Reading List” item. You can then toggle between your unread items and all items that have been added to the list. If you want to delete something from the list, just swipe your finger across the item (left to right or right to left) and tap the delete button that appears.

Enjoy a more streamlined and decluttered mobile browsing experience!