Flipboard, the iPad app that turns Twitter and Facebook into a personalized magazine, has just gotten a huge update. Earlier today, our own Brian X Chen profiled the app and its creators, and briefly mentioned the main new additions: support for Google Reader and Flickr. These have turned an already compelling app into possibly the best way to browse all your online sources.
You add the new sections just like any other, only you need to log in to these accounts the first time. Google Reader’s content initially appears rather useless, a seemingly random pick of your unread RSS news items presented in no particular order.
But tap the title and you can browse by sections which correspond to the folders set in Reader. You can all drill down into starred items, and into individual feeds. Post you read are marked as read, and you can post articles to Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader itself. And of course, all this takes place in the lovely Flipboard interface.
Flickr is even better. Again you see a selection of the latest photos from your contacts, and you just tap and swipe to browse or view bigger. Once you’re browsing, you can favorite a picture, share it or tap on your contact’s avatar picture and choose to view more of their images. You can even choose to hide photos from a contact in case you have a few more risque subscriptions you don’t want to be seen.
The other sections have also been updated. Facebook and Twitter can now be further explored by narrowing down to your Facebook groups, your own Twitter feed, Tweets mentioning you, your favorites and more. You can also split any of these subsections off into a full section, available from Flipboard’s front page.
There are many other tweak which you’ll find as you play (and I guarantee you’ll waste a good half hour playing as soon as you you get the update). One, though, makes as big a difference as all the others put together. Flipboard finally supports fast-app-switching. Now, if you leave to, say, change a track in the iPod app, you will come back where you left off. Previously you had to start over, a huge pain.
Flipboard, as ever, is free. Go get it.
Flipboard [iTunes]
See Also:
- How Flipboard Turned Web Noise Into iPad Gold
- Hands-On: Flipboard Turns Your iPad into a Personalized Magazine …
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