Flipboard for Android: Daily App Pick

BreakingModernFlipboard is a news congregator on steroids. Its name is taken from its beautiful magazine-style format that enables you to flip through pages by simply swiping your finger on the screen. Flipboard presents news as exciting visual stories with photos, music and video. The content loads and, depending on your device, the pages flip quite quickly. It’s available as a free download for Android on Google Play. It’s also available on a host of other mobile platforms:  Apple iOS, Windows Phone, Blackberry and Kindle Fire.

I have used Flipboard for years and it continues to get better and better. Recently Flipboard revamped the way it handles cover stories, creating an impressive collage of the news stories from your choice of news outlets. Everything can be reached from the My Flipboard page.

my flipboard

Personal

Flipboard calls itself “Your Personal Magazine” and it delivers on that promise. It is very customizable, allowing you to choose the content that matches your interests. You do this by flipping to your Cover Stories page and touching the red ribbon where you can see a myriad of categories like Business, Tech & Science, Sports, Shopping and Travel. You can easily drill down to exactly what you want, adding it by simply touching the Follow icon at the top of the page.

You can also choose specific websites, blogs and news outlets to follow by typing the URL into the search bar and clicking on the RSS feed icon from that page. Don’t worry if you have a lot of interests, your Flipboard home page can actually span three pages.

Flipboard Red Ribbon

Social

Flipboard also handles social networks with aplomb. Tap the red ribbon and go to Accounts. Select a social network and log in. That network will automatically be added to your Flipboard as a section, and that Facebook news feed (for instance) will stream right in.  Flipboard gives you a different way to look at your social media accounts by turning them into a magazine-style format. At the same time, it allows you to interact and make posts just as you normally would.

Another wonderful personalization option in Flipboard is the ability to create your own personal magazines. Add anything you like from the web into your magazines with the “Flip It” bookmark. This can be added to any browser. Once installed, the Flip It button will appear on your browser toolbar and you can then use it to add any webpage to any of your magazines.

Flipit bookmarklet

You can keep your magazines private or you can share them on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Weibo and others. You can also flip a video or an image. The Flipboard Editor allows you to manage your magazines from the web. You can rearrange and remove items and set cover images from this dashboard.

By default, you need an Internet connection to access Flipboard, but you can save individual pages for offline reading if you have an Instapaper, Pocket or Readability account.

Flipboard give you customized news in an appealing way and even allows you to save and congregate the news that interests you. It is, of course, better on tablets and larger phones. But it works well on all of the platforms that I’ve tried.

For BMod, I’m Sandy Berger.

Have a great app you want to share? Email it to [email protected].

All screenshots: Sandy Berger

Featured image credit: By bodoklecksel (own foto) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Header Image Credit: Magazine Stack” by the bittenword.com via Flickr Creative Commons

Sandy Berger

Author: Sandy Berger

Based in Pinehurst, North Carolina, Sandy Berger is a veteran tech journalist and reviews editor at aNewDomain.net covering tech tips and tricks, apps, gadgets, and consumer electronics. Follow @sandyberger on Twitter, +SandyBerger on Google+, and on Facebook.

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