Now You Can Read Instapaper on Kobo Apps

E-reading service Kobo announced Friday that it is updating its iPhone and iPad apps to include Instapaper integration. Customers will be able to read articles they’ve clipped from the web within the same e-reading app that they use to read their e-books and other digital content.
Users can link their Instapaper accounts to Kobo by entering a user name and password. A new book with an Instapaper cover appears on their virtual bookshelves, and its contents are automatically updated as they add web content to their Instapaper accounts. For now, features like bookmarks, highlights and notes are disabled for Instapaper articles, but other than that the reading experience is similar to an e-book.
The Instapaper integration is the second major update Kobo has made to its apps [iTunes link] this month. Last week, the company added a social reading component to its iPad app, called Reading Life, that allows users to check in to books, win badges and share passages with friends via Facebook.
Plans to add Reading Life to Kobo apps on other platforms are in the works, and this latest update complements the social reading feature nicely. One component of Reading Life, for instance, is an individualized reading profile that includes stats like hours read, books completed and percentage of library completed. Adding Instapaper to the iPad app allows Kobo to include information about the users’ web content in those stats for a more complete profile of their “reading life.”