The other day we had a review of an RSS reader, and another news provider is knocking on the screens of our iPads and his name is Twitter in the person of Flipboard. Many resources already have their own twitter channels, which inform readers about news or supplement the main feed with useful links and messages, we also have one. @macradar... Subscribe and find out a lot more :)
As the developers assure, Flipboard is a social magazine that draws in a friend feed from Facebook and Twitter. At first glance, it looks a lot like Pulse News Reader, but this is only superficial resemblance. Content absorption in Flipboard is different, because the source is fundamentally different from the RSS feed.
Viewing the magazine begins with the cover. Messages with an image in their content are randomly displayed on it. All this is accompanied by the effects of shift and enlargement, which makes the picture lively. At the bottom there is a "Recent contributors" strip for navigating through the news feed. In fact, the cover here is not casual, while the user admires all these beauties, most of the news will have time to be loaded. Turn the page and get to the navigation menu.
Below is a screenshot of the freshly installed program, from which it becomes clear that Flipboard has two specialized cells, one for your Twitter, the other for your FaceBook account. The remaining seven cells are left to the mercy of the user; he can fill them in to his taste by deleting the standard channels using the Edit button. So, the accounts are connected and you can start using the social magazine.
Flipboard Inc uses a script to process content on its servers and transfer it to the client program. Indeed, it all looks like a glossy magazine. Nice layout style, pictures everywhere and unmatched pearls of your friends. Add to this the ability to write reviews, add news to Twitter Favorites or send a link by email. Yes, no magazine stood next to such fun!
Okay, so be it. As a social magazine, Flipboard is not focused on communication in some places. It can be forgiven, it can even be fixed. But the visual side is also lame. All of these pictures posted on Twitter are often not large enough and look terrible on the iPad screen, to which is added not always the correct scaling of images.
Going further, Flipboard filters the text from it links are thrown. For example, in this review there are five links to additional materials, but you will not see them, this information will be lost to you forever. Complementing this is trimming tags and meta data, which may not be noticeable to most readers, but will come as an unpleasant surprise to some. This culminates in some encoding issues here and there.
The ability to access hidden information by processing the content of the resource using your own script for aggregation will please someone, but not the content owners. This state of affairs is more likely to lead to lawsuits against Flipboard Inc. than to the conclusion of lucrative contracts. Reflections on the legality of Flipboard can be viewed and
Flipboard is an interesting idea embodied in code. The application has great potential, a new look at social media, the ability to attract even more people to social networks and make your pastime easier and more understandable. At the same time, Flipboard is not able to replace a browser with an open page on Facebook or a full-fledged Twitter client, this is its main drawback.
It often happens that we buy a magazine because of a couple of interesting articles, or we buy a disc because of a few of our favorite musical compositions. In fact, in this case, we are forced to buy what we are not very interested in in order to enjoy what we like. The Flipboard mobile app lets you forget about these trade-offs once and for all with incredibly engaging content. How does Flipboard work? The utility collects many articles and fresh news on the topic of your choice. You receive a personalized issue of the magazine with material specifically for you, which can be viewed in the morning with a cup of coffee, at lunchtime or before bed.
You can not only passively receive up-to-date information about the state of affairs in the world, but also independently search for what interests you at a given moment. Constant tracking of updates in social networks (the program can simultaneously "monitor" up to 12 social sites) simplifies the user's life as much as possible and eliminates the need to waste time on authorization in each of them. The utility has a detailed widget for the desktop, which allows you to quickly access the latest news collections.
Relatively recently, an interesting program called Flipboard has appeared on the Internet. So far, few people imagine what it is, although the application is gaining incredible popularity among users. Let's try to consider some aspects related to it.
Flipboard: what is it?
At the first glance at the application, many users will make the unequivocal conclusion that the program is the most ordinary news magazine or just a news manager. But this is only the first impression. If you dig deeper, you will find many hidden features that set it apart from standard RSS news feeds or clients for viewing the latest world events.
The Flipboard application for Windows itself (or the version for mobile operating systems, which was the progenitor of the stationary modification) was originally created only for viewing news, but over time it has become something more. The point here is that, in comparison with ordinary news clients, the program looks exactly like a magazine (even turning the pages happens, as in real life). But this is only one side of the coin.
Equally, the same Flipboard application in Russian or any other language can be classified as personal diaries, which store the latest news, articles, videos or photos you like.
Flipboard. Is it a news manager or a social network?
Since a modern person cannot imagine himself without the Internet and registration in various popular networks, the creators of this program considered it necessary to add such an element.
Not only can you link Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or other "social networks" or services to the application, the key point is to register and create your own profile directly in the program. And this only means that your friends can meet among the users.
It is not surprising that the magazine has become a kind of community where you can add other users as friends, share news, photos and videos, leave comments - in general, there is everything that no social network can do without. This is the Flipboard program. It is very difficult to say what it really is, because the application combines a lot of elements that are typical for news managers and for social networks.
Main features of the application
If we talk about the main set of functions and tools, there are a lot of them here. So, for example, when viewing news, you can read all in a row or current publications. You can also simply select a predefined topic (the list of topics is located in a special menu).
In addition, the program has a simple, intuitive interface and a convenient log management system in the form of a special panel. News is constantly updated, among them you can find publications from almost all over the Russian Internet, including such popular publications as Kommersant, RBK, Vedomosti and many others.
Advantages and disadvantages of the program
Among the main advantages of the Flipboard application, almost all users note the quick and easy linking of other social network accounts, excellent design, convenience and practicality in use, high functionality, when turning pages, no freezes associated with bugs, and, of course, free distribution. In addition, it clearly speaks in favor of this application that there is absolutely no advertising here at all!
Mobile version of the application
In addition to the Windows modification, there is also a mobile version of Flipboard. An Android magazine is fundamentally no different from an application for stationary computer systems. The settings are the same, the visual perception is the same, except that the screen size is smaller.
As in a regular program, here you need to spend a few minutes of your time to instantly synchronize all accounts (as a rule, on mobile devices they are constantly active, which greatly simplifies the task) and select topics of interest from the corresponding section. Control is carried out using a touchscreen (for example, enlargement of photos is made by pinching).
In terms of design, it is worth noting that each selected channel has its own cover, like a regular magazine, which has a main photo with the main news of a given period of time and links to other publications with short annotations.
Instead of an afterword
To sum it up, the Flipboard app is unique. What it is (a social network or just a magazine) is rather difficult to determine, since the boundaries between the capabilities of "social networks" and ordinary print media are practically erased.
This makes this application one of the most popular among users of all ages. It is not surprising that in a relatively short period of its existence it has gained such high popularity. Even on the mobile service Google Play, the number of downloads exceeds 100 million! And the fact that the program has enormous capabilities and even some kind of versatility speaks of the professionalism of the developers.
The only thing worth noting in the end is the overall assessment and comments of the people who installed this software product. In the same Google Play service, the average score is at 4.4, and some reviews seem clearly not in favor of the application. But, I think, this is due only to the fact that not everyone knows about this program yet, and some simply did not understand the settings.
Opportunities
- constant tracking of fresh news and updates in social networks;
- the ability to select the news streams of interest and feeds from social networks, sort the publications into separate categories;
- collection of news and articles on a given topic;
- magazine reading format with a special layout technology and dynamic page division;
- adding comments;
- transfer of materials to bookmarks.
Pros and cons
- free;
- Russian-language menu;
- quick access to news feeds thanks to a detailed desktop widget;
- comfortable reading;
- interface stylized as glossy magazines.
- incorrect resizing of images for some articles;
- does not support work with all sites;
- in order to see the full text of individual publications, you need to go to the source site;
- lack of functions for changing the font size, etc.
Alternatives
Pocket. Free application for viewing and saving interesting content. Allows you to save videos, articles, recipes, web pages, exchange information with friends or share it via social networks, read the saved material on any device.
Pulse. Free news app for Android with the ability to keep track of interesting events in the world. Supports over 500 channels with thematic catalogs. Can upload news offline.
Work principles
After starting the program, you need to select the categories of news that will be displayed in the feed. The list contains 18 different topics.
The main menu is presented in the form of a log. Turning over its pages, you can easily select and read an interesting publication.
The next tab contains all categories, news, accounts and people that a user can read.
In the "Search" tab, you can search for specific topics by tags in the titles.
The bell tab is responsible for notifications, and the last tab is a profile that displays all user actions.
Flipboard is a good news aggregator with a nice design.
Why is it worth downloading Flipboard for Android?
If downloadFlipboard for android it will be possible to access a huge variety of topics and news. Moreover, here you can find the latest news about celebrities and even subscribe to information that concerns only them. Read and make note of something for yourself. Each news item is published along with a photograph. It doesn't matter what you are interested in or do, there is any information here. Travel lovers will be interested to learn about popular resorts, those who follow the world of technology have access to the most innovative technologies, and lovers of gorgeous food will learn everything about cooking. And this is only a small part of the topics that are collected here. In fact, there are many more of them and everyone will find a club of interest for themselves. If you still enjoy sharing more than reading, then feel free to create your own blog. Also, the user can create a magazine in which it will be possible to save the most useful information from the service, mark photos and even videos here. In this case, you can quickly return to this information and view it. Find people with your interests and share the latest news with them.
