Flipboard for iPad review
Among the already great selection of iPad news-reading apps, Flipboard (free) continues to be the best of the best, of the best…with honors. Version 3.0 of Flipboard for the iPad now has a more streamlined interface, a daily curated magazine, and a way of reading that looks like a social media site and encourages you to follow topics, people, and magazines. Flipboard 3.0 is still very much like it’s preceding versions, with aggregated articles, videos, and social media all at your fingertips.
How it works
Begin Flipboard by selecting a topic, or topics, forming a grid of 18 options, and then tapping the Next icon. Flipboard will compile your digital magazine and display the individual topics in a series of panels. Bringing a finger to the red ribbon in the upper-right corner opens a list of additional categories and lets your tinker with options.
What’s great about Flipboard is that all your favorite topics come to you—you don’t have to actively visit your favorite online destinations. Kicking back with an iPad in hand and scrolling through content from The Associated Press, IGN, Los Angeles Times, and other outlets is a breezy, effortless affair.
Turning Pages
Flipboard displays most articles as clean page with black text on a white background, as you’d imagine an old-school newspaper would display on a page. Many publishers actually do require you to click through to their website to view the entire article. It’s rare enough to not be too much of a distraction.
Flipboard’s navigation is awesome, and integrates social media sites into the news if you’re setup for that. Almost seamless is this social media integration, and how it suggests related articles and topics.
By default, you can’t read articles without an Internet connection, but you can save individual pages for offline reading if you download and install Instapaper, Pocket, or Readability. I’d like for this feature to get more robust, as those not in the big city all the time would benefit.
Latest Features
The new Flipboard is both more personal and magazine-like.
- With over 30,000 topics now available, your Flipboard can be as unique as you are. Topics range from “action hero” to “zoology” (and everything in-between), and you can find them via search or by tapping on the new topic tags on articles.
- Want to catch up on the news in a fast, definitive way? Meet The Daily Edition, a carefully curated roundup of top headlines in news, business, tech, sports and culture, along with some fun elements, like a daily track and a Parting GIF to send you off on your day with a smile.
- An all-new design for the phone, where Flipboard has been re-imagined to be more magazine-like and elegant. Open Flipboard, and you’ll be immediately immersed in a highly-visual and up-to-the-minute stream of articles, photos and more based on your areas of interest.
The MagMakers among you will be excited to learn that there’s an updated look for profiles and a new Web tool called My Analytics, which offers an overview of how your curation is performing on Flipboard.
Flipboard for iPad is an excellent newsreader that’ll make you forget about browsing websites, and old-school content feeds. Browsing the Internet may be dead, but it won’t be missed when it’s this easy. Download an Offline Reader App to read articles at a later time, when you’re offline, and Flipboard will have everything you need to be the most well-read news junkie you know.
Read more and download at about.flipboard.com.
