This is the fifteenth article in the series App of the Week series.
With Google’s announcement last month of Google Reader that it would be shutting down in the summer, there have been several companies that said they would step up to fill the void for bloggers and readers that still want to have that RSS reader feel that we have grown attached to with Google. Flipboard is the top reported company that has seen success since the announcement, so we wanted to give the iOS app another try.
The Good
Flipboard has just hit 2.0 with some much needed upgrades that you will find appealing.
- It’s Fancy Other RSS applications simply give you the feeds which is the baseline for a good reader, but Flipboard’s now iconic “magazine” transitions between pages give you the feel that you are flipping through a magazine, even if the content comes from online.
- Your Own Custom Magazine Prior to the update, you could not make your own custom feeds and were instead limited to whatever was popular with the whole of Flipboard within the specific topics like Tech and Beauty. Now, you can make your own custom magazine (think custom RSS) and it can be synced to your current Google Reader.
- Social Integration You now can email whole magazines or share them to your social network so people can get access to whole sets of RSS feeds and not just individual blog RSS feeds. Of course, you can still share or email any single article, photo or video.
The Bad
Unfortunately, Flipboard has not set itself as the forerunner for Google’s replacement and here are some issues.
- Not As Powerful As Google We talked about this at length before, but beauty may be nice for readers, but power is what publishers want. If someone readers all of their news at 8 o’clock and you post at 7:45AM, there is little chance that reader will be seeing your post.
- Transitions Bad On iPhone As wonderful as the magazine transitions look on the iPad, they are actually annoying on the iPhone and a change needs to happen. You have limited real-estate and so one post may have between 3 and 15 pages you are flipping through.
- Trying To Be Its Own Social Network With usernames and @mentions now built in, it is trying to create its own social media and for a very select few this may be nice, but I do not need more noise added to my life. Stick to giving us the feeds and leave the rest to actual social networks.
What do you like or hate about Flipboard on iOS?
kolby milton says
I am using pulse. I personally love the way pulse works. I also purchased mr.reader because michael hyatt recommened it. It is good, but looks horrible! Great post.
seventy8Productions says
Do you have links to those?
seventy8Productions says
Yeah. I have no issues with the design, it is the power behind any of the alternatives that I worry most about.