I'm trying out the new Reader function in Safari 5.0. 

Here's how it works. Safari determines if you're viewing a "webpage that contains a text-based article." 

If so, a gray button that says "Reader" appears at the right end of the address bar.  

Here's what the Yahoo news page looks like. Very busy. 

Now, put aside for a moment the business issue for Yahoo, and why Apple would be the one pushing this particular envelope. See how pleasing the Reader version of this page is.  

But you have to try it out yourself to appreciate how nice it is. The scrollbar is the right user interface for reading. It shows how much better the web can be. 

Apple wants to lead publishers into the iPad environment, but I'm compelled to try to lead them to the environment suggested by Reader. And it gets even more interesting, because Reader is actually Readability.  

The developer of Readability, Richard Ziade, will be our guest on Rebooting The News podcast on Monday. Should be a very interesting discussion.  

Safari 5, Readability, iPad and Scripting2 are swirling around the same idea, how can we improve the reading experience on the net. I think we're poised to make a lot of progress, very quickly.