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Flipboard is moving to the fediverse
Flipboard is the latest mainstream app to officially join the fediverse, the collection of decentralized services that run on the ActivityPub protocol.
You can now use Flipboard to browse Bluesky
Bluesky, the Jack Dorsey-backed decentralized Twitter alternative, isn’t even out of beta yet but it’s already drawing the attention of more mainstream platforms.
Flipboard is leaning into Mastodon — and away from Twitter
Flipboard announced that it’s integrating Mastodon into its main app and that it's starting up its own Mastodon instance.
Flipboard brings its notes feature to iOS and Android
Flipboard hopes notes will help users start conversations, share ideas and build small communities around a shared interest or theme.
Flipboard's new community features make it feel more like a social network
After more than a decade, Flipboard is adding a new layer of social features to its platform.
Flipboard makes it easier to find local news in 1,000 areas across the US and Canada
The company is introducing a new discovery mechanism that will allow users to find local stories that come from 1,000 cities, towns and regions across North America.
Flipboard TV expands to all Android and iOS devices
After launching on Samsung devices earlier in the year, Flipboard TV is now available to all Flipboard users.
Flipboard’s Storyboards are a new way to curate and share across the internet
Flipboard has started rolling out a new curation tool that encourages users to narrow in on a topic with only a couple of relevant links.
Flipboard TV is a video news service that costs $3 a month
Flipboard is launching a new subscription video service called Flipboard TV. When it becomes available on March 6th, it will allow you to watch short-form news videos directly within the company's mobile app for $3 per month.
Flipboard adds a dedicated section for local news
Flipboard is launching a new "Local" tab to highlight news and content from publications that cover and operate in 23 North American cities. You can access the section by tapping on the magnifying glass icon along the bottom of the interface to make your way to the app's "Explore." From there, tap the "Local" heading to see all the featured cities.
Flipboard breach exposed usernames and passwords
If you get a password reset request from Flipboard next time you log in, don't worry -- it's not just you. The social news aggregator has revealed that an unauthorized party infiltrated some of its databases more than once and "potentially obtained copies" of the user information they contained. The unauthorized activities took place between June 2nd, 2018 and March 23rd, 2019, as well as between April 21st and 22nd, 2019. While the security breaches didn't affect all its users, Flipboard has chosen to roll out password resets to all its 145 million accounts as a precautionary measure.
Fitbit's Ionic will let you play Deezer from your wrist
Fitbit's Ionic smartwatch suffers from a dearth of apps, we noted in our Engadget review, but the wearable firm is trying to flip that equation with an update to its Fitbit OS. It will bring over 100 new watch faces and 60 apps, including Yelp, Nest, Hue Lights and Flipboard. The most interesting one is Deezer, coming in 2018, as it will run on the Ionic without a smartphone, lightening the load for runners and other athletes. The company also launched Fitbit Labs, a new effort to create apps that motivate athlete behavior changes and accelerate Fitbit's pace of innovation.
Flipboard users can upvote their way to a better home feed
Flipboard gives you lots of different ways to find interesting reads. You can choose specific topics, publications, users and magazines, all of which contribute to your main "Cover Stories" feed. The problem is that when you see something you don't like, it's hard to remove it without unfollowing one of these broader sources completely. To solve the problem, Flipboard is introducing a "fine-tune" option that lets you give any article a thumbs up or thumbs down. Depending on your feedback, Flipboard will automatically reduce or increase similar stories in your home feed. Better yet, your feedback will trigger a list of topics that Flipboard thinks are relevant to the article, giving you further control. You can also mute the publication entirely if you're not happy with their editorial style.
Apple will have human editors running its News service
The big pitch for Beats 1 is that, rather than leaving the finding of new music to algorithms, humans will actively seek out and curate fresh tunes for our ears. Now we've learned that Apple will do the same thing for its Flipboard-style news aggregation service for iOS 9. 9to5Mac has unearthed a job advert confirming that Apple News will be run not by software, but by fleshy editors who will cherry-pick the most important stories to be delivered to your phones and tablets.
Apple News app brings 'beautiful' personalized content to iOS
. Today at WWDC Apple announced a Flipboard-like news curator called, wait for it, Apple News. Like Facebook's Instant Articles push, it includes articles specifically built for the app, but can also pull in content from elsewhere on the internet. The New York Times will push 30 free articles through the app every day, while other partners, like ESPN, will bring videoclips and infographics. The secret to the app is the new "Apple News Format" that allows for custom fonts, multitouch gestures and layouts that scale from phones to tablets.
Flipboard finally brings its social news reader to the web
When Flipboard launched in 2010, news aggregation was still in its infancy. Google Reader was still the go-to RSS client for millions around the world and Twitter was only beginning to assume its role as a primary source of news. With its iPad app, Flipboard introduced a new way to digest content, with its slick magazine-style layouts and gestures that helped present articles and media in a more manageable way. Fast forward to today; Flipboard finds itself trailing social networks like Facebook, which now play a pivotal role in what hundreds of millions of people read every day. Startups like Circa and Summly (before it was acquired by Yahoo) have also made a name for themselves by breaking down news into digestible snippets of information. It's probably time Flipboard did something about the rise of its competitors, which is why it's finally expanding beyond mobile and launching fully on the web today.
Twitter's ads are headed to other apps
Well, that didn't take long. A few weeks after reports circulated about Twitter placing ads outside of its app, the 140-character social network officially announced its plans to do just that. Today, the company outed the "first partnerships to syndicate Promoted Tweets outside of Twitter," and those deals are in place with Flipboard and Yahoo Japan. ESPN was also mentioned in early rumblings, but there's no indication that the sports broadcaster has signed on just yet. For now, the ads... er, Promoted Tweets will take on the appearance of other Flipboard content, and if you're itchin' for an early look, there's an example on the other side of the break.
Twitter wants to put ads in other companies' apps
Twitter isn't growing as quickly as it used to, so it can't just count on a horde of new social networkers to pump up its bank account. What's it going to do, then? Sell ads elsewhere, apparently. Sources for the Wall Street Journal claim that Twitter is planning to offer ads for the tweet feeds you see in other companies' apps and websites, sharing the money it makes with its partners. It's not certain who's onboard with the idea. Twitter reportedly cited both ESPN and Flipboard as examples during a presentation at CES, but a WSJ tipster says that there's no official deal with ESPN just yet.
FlowVella: The presentation app formerly known as Flowboard
What's the difference between Flowboard and Flipboard? If you're the creators of Flowboard - a presentation creation app -apparently the app name isn't different enough from Flipboard, the story aggregation app. A trademark court found Flowboard to be just a wee bit too close to the name of Flipboard, so the former is now being rebranded as FlowVella. Let's hope they don't get into a trademark dispute with the makers of Nutella... There's more news from the FlowVella front as part of the rebranding. The company is launching an App Builder for packaging your Flows as iPad apps - that will cost you as little as US$99/month per app. The apps are also getting new pricing to go along with the new name. The iPad version of FlowVella is now available for free, while the Mac version - formerly available for $19.99 - is now only $4.99. Should FlowVella become your presentation go-to tool, there are optional premium subscriptions available.
Flipboard update greatly improves this popular news app
Flipboard (free) has always been popular for reading news and following topics. The only downside is that it lacked any personalization. You got the topics you selected, but the app did not learn my favorite topics the way another news app -- Zite -- did. Times change. Earlier this year Flipboard purchased Zite to get the other company's smart personalization software, and a new Flipboard has been born, just now hitting the App Store. The new app looks better, it's easier to use, and it now has the kind of personalization that made Zite such a pleasure to use. When you launch the new app, you get more than 30,000 topics from which to choose. You can also search for topics not covered. Using the app I found a lot of the topics were right in line with what I wanted to read. Flipboard has always followed a magazine-type presentation, and the new app stays with that. The re-design is most noticeable on the iPhone version, which adds a tab bar for enhanced navigation. Looking at available stories involves swiping, or flipping up. Tap to read, then flip up again to go through the pages. It's very fast and responsive. Once you are in a story, it can be marked to indicate you weren't interested (a thumbs down) or you can save images to your camera roll. You can also open the story directly in Safari, email it, and send it to others via the usual social networks. Flipboard combines human curation with the smart Zite algorithms to make sure you are getting what you want to read. You no longer have to build magazines with Flipboard, which I thought was a weakness. Now the app learns and delivers the content you want, while still supporting magazine-style groupings of information. Flipboard delivers ads that will hopefully be relevant to readers. Flipboard will also, if you select it, deliver a news summary for you at 7 A.M local time. This is a much improved app that was already quite good. I'm still a big fan of Zite, but at some point I expect the Flipboard folks will sunset Zite, since much of the technology behind it has now been folded into Flipboard. I'm excited about the changes, and using the app is a pleasure, especially on an iPhone. If you've used the app in the past but moved on, it's worthy of a fresh look in this latest version. Flipboard requires iOS 7 or later and it has been optimized for the iPhone 5 and the new iPhone 6 series.
