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Twitbook will never be the same

My Flipboard home page. Images are from posts
I try really hard not to get too enthusiastic about the iPad too often, or people will get bored - but I can't resist pointing out the occasional app that really delivers for me.

A Twitter page - each story is a tweet, but incorporates
data from links (if there are any)
One I'm rather pleased with is Flipboard. It's a beautifully laid out app that can tap into your Facebook and Twitter accounts, your RSS reader and also various interesting feeds from Wired to Popular Science magazine. Each appears as a top level box. Tap the box and it opens into the relevent stream of information - but rather than just provide a simple list of contents, it picks up any photos or web pages linked to and incorporates them into a newspaper-like format. The result is very impressive. I like using Tweetdeck for reading Twitter, but Flipboard takes Twitter to a new level because you don't have to click through to find out what a link refers to or to see a photo.

It's quite simple in approach and needs a few additions (for instance handling Twitter groups). It also isn't great at some of the extra bits of Facebook like comments and liking (in principle it can handle these, but it doesn't seem to work properly). Even so, it's very elegant, and particularly with Twitter it really opens up the interface.

Oh, and it's free.

Comments

  1. Flipboard only launched its Android app recently. The app allows users to browse through their Facebook, Twitter and Google+ streams, as well as Google Reader feeds in a beautiful flipping manner. It also consolidates and curates a stream of important stories for those who are too busy to go through everything. As a blogger, using this app and browsing through interesting news content daily will give you fresh ideas on what to write about in your next blog post.

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