Flipboard Review: Media Evolving
| App Name: | |
| Platforms: | Universal (Optimized for iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad) |
| Publisher(s): | Flipboard, Inc. |
| Version Reviewed: | 1.1.1 |
| Genre(s): | News reader |
| Release Date: | December 23, 2010 |
| Price: | Free |
| Download |  |
When Flipboard released this past summer, it was showered with praise for its innovative design and interface. But a lot of folks, myself included, looked at it as a slick novelty app more than a serious news reader. The Flipboard dev team promised a lot of features in the future — social networking, Google Reader support, better web integration — but we here at App Chronicles decided to take a “wait and see” approach before passing judgment.
Well, here we are six months later, and it’s time to hop on the bandwagon. Flipboard is without question the current standard for browsing news and RSS feeds on the iPad.
If you haven’t heard of it, Flipboard is a news reader that presents your favorite news and RSS feeds in a slick magazine-style format. Instead of a regular text feed, you get large, bold headers, bylines, columnar stories, and a ‘zine style layout complete with images. You flip pages naturally, tap stories to expand them, and even navigate to the story web pages straight from the app.It’s all gorgeous and very functional. And now, some content sites are even optimizing their pages for Flipboard viewing, making them more ‘zine like.
Content is streamed via any feeds you choose to subscribe to. You can connect to any RSS feed individually; browse pre-designed feeds that Flipboard has assembled; load up your Facebook and Twitter feeds to read about your friend’s latest exploits; browse Flickr; and now, since the latest update, also subscribe to your Google Reader feeds … though you can’t subdivide by your Google Reader categories — currently the one glaring omission, IMO.
Flipboard also has implemented robust social networking options, something it’s improved upon since launch. In addition to loading your Twitter and Facebook feeds, you can also share items via those services; comment on any story in-app; e-mail items to friends; or favorite them. In other words, there’s a lot you can do to not just read, but also share and talk about the news in-app.
Are there downsides to this app? Sure. It’s not perfect. Sometimes the layouts can be a bit clunky, as it’s trying to load everything into a dynamic scheme. Images can get cropped strangely; irrelevant stories can be prominently featured on top of the page while more impo
rtant news is buried at the bottom; because it’s chronological, there’s no indication of news quality, importance, or relevance. But some of these are issues with feed reading normally, so there’ s nothing to really point to here as a Flipboard flaw.
This app deserves the attention Steve Jobs and Apple have heaped on it — the keynote feature, the App of the Year honors, the shout out in advertising. It’s become my go-to browser for reading all my favorite news feeds and even my Facebook news feed. It still needs a few things — like being able to read Google Reader by category — but at this point I have no doubt that those things are coming. [I also don't doubt that monetizing the app is somewhere in the future, likely through spot-placement ads, but we'll judge that bridge when we cross it.] Flipboard is the kind of app you want to use.
It’s free. It’s awesome. Just download it, already.
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