Get The iOS 7 Experience For Your Pinboard Bookmarks With Pincase

Pincase - A simple, elegant and powerful bookmarking client for Pinboard, perfect for managing your daily discoveries. ($1.99) by Keishi Maeda is a Pinboard client that is perfectly made for iOS 7. This app is similar to things like Pushpin and Pinbook for Pinboard, but made to match the new aesthetics of iOS 7.

I’ve only signed up for a Pinboard account just a few months ago, but it’s proven to be an invaluable tool for my daily activities. I use it for all of the public bookmarks that I want to reference later at some point, and I’ve even created several IFTTT recipes to create private bookmarks for images and videos I’ve liked on Instagram and YouTube, or even things I like in Instapaper.

I’ve acquired over 1,000 bookmarks in my account already, in just a few short months, and that will only continue to grow as time passes on. While I’m still a “newbie” in terms of Pinboard, I love checking out the new iOS apps that come along for the service, and Pincase is definitely one that caught my eye.

First, in order to use any Pinboard app, you will need to sign up for an account here. This is a paid service, unlike other bookmarking sites like delicious, so your paid membership helps keep the business sustainable, and it’s a one-time fee for life. The price goes up as there are more members, so if you’ve been wanting to join for a while (like me), I recommend signing up now before it crawls up in price again.

Pincase is a prime example of how a Pinboard client should look now that iOS 7 has arrived. Everything has been flattened out, there is plenty of whitespace with dark header bars and light text to balance things out a bit, and there are buttons that hide themselves when you’re scrolling for the most effective viewing. In some ways, it reminds me a bit of Vesper. This is how an iOS 7 app should look, as the standard UI of most apps is getting a bit tiresome already.

Once you are logged in to your account, Pincase is basically split up into two sections from the main screen: Your Bookmarks and Discover. I actually could do without the rather large colored square that features the Pincase logo in the middle, as this seems a bit excessive to me, but I digress. You can access the app settings with the cog button in the top right corner.

When you view Your Bookmarks, it will be on Recent by default. You can scroll through your bookmarks from here, and the app will automatically load more once you reach the bottom. If you are looking for something specific, tap on the header bar to show a list of your tags — this will filter out the results, making it easier for you to find specific things. The search functionality can also be used by tapping on the magnifying glass, and then inputting your keywords. Pincase delivers results in real-time to make things easier.

When you are scrolling through your bookmarks, Pincase will reveal two buttons along the way towards the bottom: Edit and Everything. With Edit, you can batch select many of the results at once for marking (private, public, read, unread), tagging (add or delete tag), and deletion. You can also select everything or clear the selection, making it easy for mass editing or deleting if necessary.

I love this feature, as I end up with a lot of “Instagram: Page not found” bookmarks in my list, probably due to private accounts. My previous Pinboard app of choice, Pushpin, did not have such a feature, so I ended up having to do it manually one-by-one from the Pinboard website, which is a hassle. So thanks to Pincase, batch modifying is a breeze!

The “Everything” button gives users the option to filter to results to everything, private or public only, or unread only, in case you need only certain bookmarks. You can swipe on any bookmark to reveal a contextual menu with options to mark as read, view webpage, edit, delete, and share.

Going back to the other section of Pincase, Discover will feature several exploring views: Popular, Recent, Trending, Favorite Stream (latest feed from your following tags), Japanese, Wikipedia, and Fandom. If you are ever bored and looking for some material to check out, these are a good place to start. These sections will feature bookmarks from the majority of users, which will always lead to something interesting. It’s shown in a list view by default, but you can change it to the rich version once you start scrolling a bit. The rich version will display live previews of the pages, including thumbnails when necessary and excerpts from articles.

If you are using Pinboard to follow specific tags, you can manage them from Pincase as well. Simply go to the “Manage following tags” section and view what’s new, add a new tag, or delete them.

No matter which view you’re in for bookmarks, it’s always the same way to view them — just give them a tap. This will load up your bookmark in the in-app browser. If you tap on the “…” button in the bottom right corner, you will reveal a menu with options editing or deleting the bookmark, sharing it or opening in your browser of choice (Safari or Google Chrome), or refreshing the page.

As mentioned, the app’s settings can only be accessed from the main screen, where it shows Your Bookmarks and Discover. The settings will give you options for your account, bookmark settings (mark read when tapped, add new as private, etc.), app options (Google Chrome for browser, sound effects, shake to get feedback), other settings for linked accounts, unread management, and goodies like the bookmarklet. If you ever need to reset the cache or do a manual sync, these can be found here as well.

So far, I’m really enjoying the features of Pincase, making it my default go-to app for my Pinboard needs on iOS. It looks great and has plenty of polish and functionality that I don’t have in apps like Pushpin. There are a few grammatical errors in the app, but the functionality keeps me coming back.

The only thing that really bugs me is — why does the app icon need such a long shadow on it?

If you’re a Pinboard user looking for a fresh new app made for iOS 7 for accessing your bookmarks, then I recommend giving Pincase a try. You can get it in the App Store as a universal download for $1.99 for a limited time (50 percent off).