Substack, the newsletter platform that’s getting more and more akin to a blogging service, has launched an app. This isn’t a review, it’s too early, but I must say, they’re doing many things right. It’s not terribly different from Matter, the read it later app and service I’ve discussed previously, but where Matter stumble with their iPad app, Substack recognizes proper column width.
Unsurprisingly, the Substack app is all about following and reading your Substack newsletters. That currently includes the Switch to iPad (this is how it works) newsletters, so you can definitely read those in the app. It even looks pretty good, albeit a bit different from how it looks on the web (the Substack archive is here, for comparison).
I’m conflicted about the Substack app, which I’ve outlined further in this Bored Horse post. Switch to iPad might very well leave the platform, for plenty of reasons, but suffice to say, the app doesn’t clear any of them up.
You can download the Substack app from the App Store for free. They’re circumventing the App Store tax for subscriptions, obviously, so while you can subscribe to a Substack through the app, it’ll be the free version (you’ll get an upsell email though). And no, you can’t yet send newsletters or manage your Substacks through the app.
