Get your read-it-later on with Pocket’s new Mac app

Pocket for Mac is officially released, and makes viewing multimedia easier, faster, and more refined for those saving on the go.

From commuting to appointment waiting to leisure, people are always looking for different ways to kill time by reading, viewing, and saving things from the Web. Read-it-later apps like Instapaper and Readability have dominated the market, but Pocket — formerly Read It later — continues to push ahead and win over users with its simplicity. If you’re one for saving articles on top of multimedia, Pocket may be your best bet at a beautiful way to save webpages for later viewing, complete with a tagging system to help organize your links. Now that the app’s come to the Mac platform, you can sync your iOS or Android accounts so saved pages can be viewed on-the-go, or saved on your mobile device to be read back on your desktop.

Pocket for Mac is as intuitive an app as you can imagine when it comes to saving pages. To get started, simply copy the link of the webpage you’re trying to store, and click File > Save Item from Clipboard, or shortcut Command+S. Your list of saved pages displays on a vertical screen to the left of the Pocket window, with the content on the right when you select.

Neat additions to the Mac version of Pocket is definitely the one-key shortcut, such as A for Archive and F to Favorite. You can also tag each page so they’re easier to search the more you accumulate saved links. Videos also translate nicely onto Pocket, especially if you already have Flash installed on your Mac. The app allows you to view the video straight out of its interface, otherwise requesting that you download necessary plug-ins to play multimedia. I personally haven’t run into file type errors, as most publications will post videos from YouTube or Vimeo anyway, and those seem to work just fine.

If you want to share a link after already viewing the content, the Item > Share button also does a good job of sending the item out to Twitter, Facebook, Evernote, and Buffer. It’s even got a tweet attribution when you send it from Pocket, which is a small but useful touch.

Overall, Pocket does a good job recognizing pictures in an article, article link, headline, byline, and publication. One function I wish was available is the ability to rename files, such as a photo I saved from a blog that didn’t have a get an assigned name, according to Pocket. Between constantly traveling and attempting to save things to read later, Pocket makes a nice alternative for those who enjoy minimal design with multimedia capability, and the willingness to learn some cool shortcuts and make saving for later quick and painless. Pocket for Mac is available now for free via the App Store.