How to enable iOS 5 Safari Reader on my website?

Question

How does the Reader function of Mobile Safari in iOS 5 work? How do I enable it on my site. How do I tell it what content on my page is an article to trigger this function?<

Answer 1

I've tested 100 or so variations of this on my iPhone in order to figure out what triggers this elusive Reader state. My conclusions are as follows:

Here is what I found had an impact:

• Having around 200 or more words (or 1000 characters including whitespace) in the article you want to trigger the "Reader" seems necessary
• The reader was NEVER triggered when I had less than 170 words; although it was sometimes triggered when I had 180 or 190 words.
• Text inside certain elements such as
  or
  (that are not typically used to contain a story) will not count towards the 200 words (they will however be displayed in the reader if the reader is triggered for other reasons)
  • Wrapping the 200 words in a block element such as a
    or

    seems necessary (that said, I'd be surprised if there were any websites where that was not already the case)

  For full disclosure, here is what I found did NOT have an impact:

  • Whether using a header or not
  • Whether wrapping the text in a

    or letting it flow freely

  • Punctuations (ie removing all periods, commas, etc, did not have an impact)