Flipboard For iPad Gives Your Social Media Life A Magazine Makeover

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Those using an iPad will now have another option for getting their social media fix. The app I am referring to is called Flipboard and has just launched today. And as an added bonus — its available for free.

According to the official description, Flipboard is the “world’s first social magazine.” And at the risk of sounding a little harsh, that did not mean all that much when I checked it out earlier this morning. Let me explain — it sort of sounds like a catch phrase that is aimed at stealing some of the recent hype surrounding the magazine craze on the iPad. Well truth be told it probably is to a certain extent.

With that, the app seems to be living up to the hype. Its been getting good reviews and good mentioned across a wide variety of sites and given that it was worth a check from me.

Going further into the description and we learn that “Flipboard is a fast, beautiful way to flip through news, photos and updates your friends are sharing on Facebook and Twitter.” And true to their word, it is not only a great looking app but its also really easy to use.

After you launch the app you are presented with a ‘cover’ which seems to change from launch to launch and has always shown me a pretty nice photo. But moving past the front page, the app itself presents you with a ‘Contents’ page which can be edited. But more importantly is the content you are presented with — your Facebook and Twitter streams as well as a few other sections such as Inside Flipboard, FlipTech, FlipStyle, and FlipPhotos. You can also add some other content sections, which can be selected from a list.

Once you get into an individual section, it looks like a magazine layout. You can swipe to flip pages and tap on a headline or image to read or see more. All in all, nicely done.

A few things that I have found worth complaining about — first, some of the articles require an additional click through to read the full article and second is that it does not appear to accept any custom feeds. Plus you can only have up to nine sections at any time. Of course, to hedge my own complaints — the extra click really does not bother me all that much and not being able to add custom feeds is probably ok. After all, that is why I have Google Reader. As for only having nine sections, it will stay better in check this way.

Unfortunately for me, I seem to have waited a bit long to give this app a chance and the Facebook and Twitter accounts are on hold so to speak. That aside though, the rest of the app is functional and appears to be well worth the download. All said and done, I think this will remain on my iPad and actually get used.