Idea Shower's Read it Later first appeared in 2007 as a one-click Firefox plug-in that automated the process of saving articles for offline viewing, and has since spread to other browsers and mobile platforms, including an iPhone app that users have, no doubt found useful in areas where wireless service is scarce. Just weeks after launching the beta version of Digest, the new premium expansion of the core Read it Later functionality, Idea Shower founder and developer Nate Weiner spoke to us over the phone to tell us about his plans for an iPad version, and how the device has helped shape the future path of Read it Later on all platforms.

"I could not be more excited about [the iPad]. It's really the perfect platform for Read it Later," admits Weiner. "On the iPhone, it's very convenient to have it whenever you're anywhere in your 'white space' time, if you're sitting in the post office, or a plane or anything. But the screen is just limiting, as far as the comfort of the reading experience. Having the same type of mobile experience, where it can be with you a lot more in that white space time, but actually have a bigger screen where you can present it a lot more beautifully and a lot easier to digest -- that's what I'm most excited about."

With the standard version of Read it Later on any platform, your saved links are simply put into a list in order of when they were saved, but Digest completely changes the way that Read it Later approaches this task. Instead, Digest automatically sorts your articles into several distinct categories (like sports, technology, or design), and then displays them on your own custom page, almost like a newspaper or website tailored to your own interests. "What you essentially get is your personalized, custom magazine completely made up of all the links you sent to it automatically, without having to tag anything or move things into folders," explains Weiner.

While Digest is already available in beta format on web browsers, and will soon make appearances in the Firefox extension and iPhone app, Weiner says the creation of Digest was largely triggered by the possibilities held within the iPad.

"I developed [Digest] for the most part really just inspired by what the iPad is going to be able to do for Read it Later," explains Weiner. "You have this nice big screen; you can just pick it up and there it is. You can be saving stuff from your iPhone, you can save stuff from your computer -- all over the web -- and whenever you pick up your iPad, you'll have this perfect magazine of all the stuff you've saved."

Weiner says Digest will be the biggest part of the iPad version, and as Idea Shower was able to maintain a lot of the core coding and functionality from the iPhone app, he's been focusing his energies on reworking the user interface for the 9.7-inch display. While he was unable to share any mock-ups of the iPad version with us at this time, he says it may follow some of the conventions seen in Apple's Mail app and others demoed to date. However, like many of the other iPad app developers we've spoken to in the run-up to the April 3 launch, not actually having an iPad in hand has added an extra layer of difficulty to the development process.

"I think the biggest thing right now is simply we don't have one," says Weiner with a laugh upon being asked about the initial challenges of developing for the iPad. "I've seen a lot of developers printing out their little paper iPads. You can hold it and you can draw on it, but until you can actually feel [the iPad] -- touch it and move stuff around, and see how the screen looks in different lighting -- it's hard to know exactly how to build it out."

Weiner later adds, "It's just hard to want to spend so much time investing in an idea for something that the second you hold it might not actually be a very good idea." It's a concept that's popped up again in a recent blog post on the Idea Shower website, in which Weiner lamented the need to submit apps before March 27 to possibly make the launch lineup, despite never actually testing its functionality on anything but the SDK simulator.

"Of all the possible scenarios we (developers) considered for exactly how Apple planned to roll out iPad apps with the release of the iPad, this was the one I dreaded the most," reads Weiner's post. "So we are now faced with a risky decision: go for fame and fortune, submit an app and cross your fingers that it actually works or wait, miss the hoopla, and submit something you know works."

Weiner doesn't answer his own quandary in the blog post, but based on the context of the question, we wouldn't be surprised if Read it Later shows up shortly after the iPad launch. Whatever the ultimate timeframe, we're looking forward to its eventual release -- and guessing at least a fair chunk of the 2+ million registered Read it Later users will be pretty keen on reading their own digital magazines on the iPad.