Tag: Flipboard »

Flipboard has been updated for iOS 7 to bring in a host of new features. Included are support for iOS 7 background loading of content and parallax image support (the way iOS 7 allows images to move with the tilt of the phone) for magazine covers.

Each week, we take a look at the top twenty most recommended iOS apps on Powerslyde. We want to help you find some great apps recommended by app lovers just like you, and maybe help you discover some apps that you might not find on the top apps lists on iTunes.

This week, we've grabbed the top five most recommended apps from Powerslyde:

Fitocracy
Fandango
Flipboard
Car Racing Free (Street Racer)
The Sims FreePlay

Pretty fascinating, if you ask me, and if you're reading this, I'm assuming you would be if you were here. Or something like that.

These are actually the top five most recommended apps on Powerslyde from the past week, a very different list from last week's. To see three big non-game apps at the top of the charts is a neat fact that we tend to overlook in the onslaught of games that take all the headlines these days, it seems.

Fitocracy is like an RPG for fitness, letting you track your entire workout routine in one place, and what better way to stay motivated than through gamification? Fandango is still my go-to app to find movie times and buy tickets when I'm in a hurry or on the go, and Flipboard is at least a weekly read in my house--it's like grabbing the Sunday paper, only it's stuff I want to read.

Having Car Racing Free and The Sims FreePlay--both fun and free games--at the top of the list just re-iterates the triumph of the free to play economy in gaming: if the game is fun, people are going to recommend it, regardless of the economic model supporting the game.

What do you think? Any apps or games you'd recommend beyond these? Sound off in the comments below!

Powerslyde is a mobile app that helps you discover the apps your friends are using, while letting you curate your own recommendation lists.

Grab the free Powerslyde iOS app right here, and help your favorite app get up on the Powerslyde most recommended list.

Over one million apps have made their way onto the App Store during its five years of existence. A million. That's a pretty miraculous number when you think about it. However it's not the amount of apps we have to pick from that I find so fascinating, but rather just how much things have changed since 2008. Pickings were comparatively slim at first, and many developers were just starting to dip a toe in the waters of Apple's new smartphone.

On top of that, the technology itself has changed tremendously in a relatively small amount of time. It makes me wonder if anyone from 2008 would even recognize current iOS devices, and by extension the App Store. Would a newer Apple initiate have any idea what they were looking at if they somehow managed to take a trip to five years ago? I think it warrants a look at how the hardware, the App Store, and the apps contained within it have evolved.

2008 - The Beginning of the Beginning

The App Store's first year was a rough but promising one. The iPhone 3G rolled out to coincide with Apple’s new software venue and the original iPhone was still viable. The iPod touch was also present and accounted for, while the second generation appeared closer to the end of the year. Even at this point many developers were eager to push these early iOS devices to their limits, to make them more than just a phone or an .mp3 player with a fancy screen.

Handy apps like Pandora Radio, Last.FM, Facebook, and Yelp were to be expected, but that didn't make them any less impressive to have on a handheld platform. Others such as the intuitive personal organizer Evernote, the eerily accurate song-identifying app Shazam, eWallet’s convenient and secure account password management, and MLB At Bat with its extensive baseball coverage further capitalized on the particulars of the hardware and its general portability. Of course there were also some pretty unnecessary options out there, too. Flashlight kind of served a purpose but was also fairly pointless. It wasn't as bad as stuff like More Cowbell!, though.

At the same time, the games available on the App Store were beginning to show people that "mobile" didn't have to equal "mediocre." Sure there were a few simple ports of the odd classic such as Ms. PAC-MAN, Vay, and Scrabble, but there were also some impressive iOS renditions of popular console games like Super Monkey Ball coming out. Potential mobile gamers also had a few really special titles such as Galcon and Fieldrunners to tide them over. When all was said and done there were over 7,500 apps on the App Store by the end of the year, with more being added every day.

2009 - Moving Right Along

The following year saw even more impressive releases as Apple's digital marketplace began to expand. The second generation of iPod Touch was the bright and shiny new toy at the time, but it was followed shortly by the iPhone 3GS in June while the latest and greatest third generation Touch closed out the year in September. It all meant better processors, better CPUs, more advanced operating systems, and so on. All stuff that developers needed to acclimate to, but also stuff that meant they could push their boundaries even further. There was no loss of steam when it came to content, either: the App Store finished off 2009 with well over 100,000 apps available.

Many of the basic smartphone necessities were covered, but there was room for so much more. Especially while the technology was improving. Plenty of people used their iPhones as phones, sure, but with the addition of Skype they were able to enjoy the added functionality of instant messaging and voice chat without cutting into their data plans (so long as a wifi connection was present). Big companies were really starting to take notice as well. That same year Starbucks and many other big businesses threw their virtual hats into the ring with their own apps designed to make life a little bit easier for their iOS-using customers. Practicality was also becoming an even bigger focus. The Kindle app gave iOS users a practical e-reading option, and Dropbox was there being Dropbox. By which I mean "an awesome and super-convenient way to transfer files between multiple platforms." And this same level of refinement could be seen creeping into the games as well.

So many of the App Store's most notable games and franchises came out around this time. It was almost a mobile rennaisence of a sort. This was the year Real Racing first blew mobile gamers' minds, even causing some of them to question the legitimacy of in-game video footage until they were able to see the finished product for themselves. Zenonia was just a fledgling action RPG at the time, and while a lot of people liked it I doubt they knew just how many sequels it would spawn. The same goes for Pocket God, although with updates rather than multiple releases. Flight Control began to eat away at peoples' free time, Angry Birds and Doodle Jump hit it big (like, super big), and Myst and The Sims 3 further displayed the potential for major releases on mobile platforms. Oh, and Canabalt almost single-handedly invented and popularized a genre.

The App Store turns five this week, and we'll be taking a long look back at this disruptive force in the way we use our mobile devices. Back in 2008, when the App Store launched, we had no idea how far it would come in such a short time, but hindsight is a good thing.

During that time, there have been a ton of apps that changed and improved the state of the art. Here, then, are ten that we think really matter, apps that had an effect on our lives, even now. Apps that changed the landscape of what we expected from a mobile device, and gave us new ways of interacting, sharing, and understanding our world.

Instagram

The grandaddy of social image sharing, Instagram created, with an ease of use and pretty image filters, a whole new social network based on images. In an era of Facebook (who eventually bought the service) and Twitter, that was no small feat.

Snapchat

While derided as a possible porn-chat app, Snapchat took a single idea and refined it to a razor's edge: take a picture, caption it, and share with your friends. Then, zen-like, that picture disappears. The hidden potential in this app caught on with young and old alike, changing the way we communicated with pictures. Without an archive, Snapchat lets users freely share what they might not otherwise.

Whatsapp

Here's an app that allows anyone on any platform to exchange messages with anyone else on any other platform. In a world where you're just as likely to have friends using Android or Blackberry as iOS, this was a revelation. Many other apps tried something similar, but Whatsapp has the userbase and an easy to use, intuitive app that brought it to the forefront. Now we can stay in touch with all our friends and family, regardless of platform, for free.

Camera+

The photographer's photography app, Camera+ fairly invented iPhoneography, letting iPhone users capture and edit better photos than the built in app with ease. Since its launch, the app has kept pace with upgrades in technology and the camera lenses in each iteration of iPhone, empowering real photographers and talented amateurs alike. Heck, they even pioneered using the volume button as a shutter release, until Apple shut that down, only to use it in the built-in Camera app.

Dropbox

Before Google Drive, before iCloud, there was Dropbox, a service that mirrors your documents across computers with a simple, unified login. The Dropbox app on the iPhone took the same, intuitive simplicity and allowed us all to access and edit the same documents on the go as easily as doing so on our Macs and PCs.

Evernote

Take notes, save pictures, record audio, bookmark websites. Do this on any device you own: Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad, Android. Evernote has become the de facto standard for network-connected note taking, and much more. You can use this app to write a shopping list on your computer, and then pull it up on your iPhone while at the store. You can collaborate with others on documents, sharing notes and notebooks with ease.

Shazam

Ever been in the car when a song comes up on the radio and you just can't remember the artist that performed it? Hold your iPhone up, launch Shazam, and let the app magically recognize the music, returning the artist name, album, and easy-purchase buttons for the iTunes store. Newer features include movie preview recognition with links to more information, and television ads that, when recognized, provide links to vendor websites. It's magical technology at its best.

InstaPaper

Marco Arment created Instapaper as a basic web app, single handedly creating the "read it later" market that many other apps now compete for. Arment started the service in 2008, built the iPhone app himself, and saw the service grow far beyond his initial vision. He's subsequently sold the app to another company, who promise to maintain and improve it as we continue forward.

Waze

Waze was one of the first social mapping and traffic app, allowing users to share road conditions with each other while on the go. It may be one of the most unappreciated apps on this list, but it continues to serve a loyal and vocal user base, providing real-time help from users to help us all plan the best route possible.

Foursquare

The check-in craze started here, with Foursquare. Becoming the mayor of a location, along with various gamification features, provided a stickiness not seen before the apps release. Even with privacy concerns dogging its every step, Foursquare has managed to remain in the public imagination as the way to let our friends know where we are at any given time.

Flipboard

RSS is great, as are Twitter and Facebook feeds. But what we really want is a place to see all of those things at once, published in a slick, easy to use layout. Enter Flipboard, still the best darn social news reader around. It makes the various web sites and social feeds we all rely on much prettier and interesting to look at, letting us keep up to date without having to dip into several different apps to do so.

Pandora

Founded as a streaming internet radio service on the web, Pandora made the transition to iOS brilliantly, becoming a force to reckon with in the competitive streaming music market, as well as a household name known by one and all. While other services continue to chip away at the venerable service, offering on-demand music access, Pandora continues to be the music access app of choice on iOS devices everywhere.

Urbanspoon

Can't decide where to eat? Shake your iPhone and Urbanspoon will randomly choose a restaurant nearby that matches your criteria of price, cuisine, and distance. Released in August of 2008, Urbanspoon was the first app on the App Store to combine GPS location data with a database of local dining and drinking establishments, creating a loyal community that reviewed meals, restaurants, and service for other users.

Rockmelt has been updated to address a few of it's shortcomings. This updated makes it a really nice app, perfect for the iPad mini, and for the first time an app gives Flipboard some real competition.

Newly universal, Vodio may be just what you're looking for when looking to discover new video from the web.

Vodio is like Flipboard for videos. It originally launched on iPad, but just came out on iPhone this week. It brought a new feature with it: Highlights. Based on videos you liked on your social networking profiles like Twitter and Facebook, as well as what you've previously watched, it'll try and compile the best videos that it think you will like, and update them regularly. (It of course, asks for permission to look at your Twitter and Facebook profiles.)

A new challenger has entered the news aggregation realm, as Streamglider+ has officially launched and is taking aim at the likes of Flipboard. The app seeks to aggregate everything that's important to you, allowing you to mix in RSS feeds, YouTube channels, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and more into one centralized app.

Streamglider+ boasts three different modes; lean-forward scrolls news and headlines across the screen, lean-back presents photos or news stories in a slideshow format and magazine mode presents fully stories just as they'd be found in a periodical, with no need to jump in and out of a browser. It's all very slick, and the pro version is currently free so there's really no reason not to check it out.

Of course the big question is can Streamglider+ dethrone the likes of Flipboard? It's a very cool app, but when you come late to the game into a space dominated by a rival what are your odds of success? We'll be interested to see how this slugfest plays out over the coming months.

Flipboard for iPhone - FREE
Flipboard has been the go to news aggregation app on the iPad almost since day one. It's slick combination of grabbing headlines from your social networks combined with an attractive, magazine-style layout has made it extremely popular, as well. The latest version includes an iPhone version, bundled into the Universal app download. It's still free, of course, so no loss implied. Here's our review of the original version.

Michael Jackson The Experience HD - $4.99
MJ fan or not, there's no doubting his talent and star power. This app from Ubisoft is iPad only and requires iOS 4.2 or later to run. It includes four of the superstar's famous hits, with more available as in-app purchases. Check out our review for more.

Temple Run - FREE
You've seen Indiana Jones, right? The first movie? Where Indiana grabs the treasure and then has to run for his life, jumping pits and avoiding spikes and such? Well, Temple Run is like that, and only that, for as long as you can last. Sounds great, right? There are more details in our review.


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Before personalized iPad magazines over took the news sector of the App Store there was Flipboard. The free iPad customized magazine was the first to offer readers their choice of news from their favorite sources, along with social network integration in one eye-pleasing package. Now, all iOS device owners can see what all the hype is about, because Flipboard has just released an iPhone native version.

For iPhone owners there are now “Cover Stories” which are the app’s top picks base on a user's profile, which gets better as Flipboard learns the reader’s tastes. This feature will be coming to iPad soon. For all, stories can now be “flicked” through for added convenience, and there is, of course, cross-device syncing.

According to MobileBeat, Fllipboard CEO Mike McCue stated:

The iPad is an amazing device that challenged us to rethink how people discover and share social news… With the iPhone we redesigned Flipboard for a new use case, where people want to find the things they care about even faster and multiple times every day. Flipboard for iPhone puts all the power of Flipboard in your pocket

If you give it a try, let us know what you think.

Flipboard, the iPad social magazine app, has announced that Comedy Central's hit show "The Colbert Report" is becoming a content provider, Mashable reports. This marks a big step for what Apple proclaimed was the best iPad app of 2010 because it is the first video contributor to be added the service. Before this announcement, rumors had been circulating that Flipboard would make this move.

What sets Flipboard apart from other media aggregators is how it presents user data from social networks and websites in the form of magazines for users to flip through. It remains to be seen though how video will be integrated into this model beyond just having a dedicated video section. We do know that users won't be able to watch full episodes, just clips and tweets from Colbert himself, a self-proclaimed iPad fan.

Flipboard's video section is currently live. Although "The Colbert Report" is the only announced partner, with Paramount Pictures and Bud Light signed on as advertisers that should change soon. Flipboard is available for free now on the App Store.

[ via Mashable.com ]

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Flipboard is already considered a must-have iPad app, but now it's even more irresistible thanks to a massive update. The social media app is now capable of including Google Reader, Flickr and live article previews. Really, what more could you ask for?

First up, those using Google Reader will find it to be nearly identical to what their familiar with on their desktop, but with a few minor concessions. You won't be able to share items with a note, run a search or manage subscriptions, though those features may become available down the road. For now though you can still read through items, star items, share without notes and most of the other familiar Reader features. It's not an exact duplication of the true experience, but it's pretty close.

Flipboard now also finally supports Flickr, one of the web's biggest photo hubs. Now you can easily view photos, mark favorites and leave comments, as well as thumb through Flickr groups and daily albums. Finally, you can leave snarky comments about your friends' drunken shenanigans right from your iPad. How did we live without this?

Another nice feature is that Flipboard will now let you preview articles before opening them, so if you just want to get the headline and a paragraph or two you won't have to wait for the whole piece to load. Also, the websites on which articles appear now pop up below whatever story you're reading, so if you want to see more stuff from the same outlet all you need to do is drag the screen up and surf the site as you normally would. Congratulations, it's now easier to be distracted than ever before!

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what the new Flipboard has to offer, but we don't want to spoil the fun of discovery. Check out the video of the new features and then start digging into them for yourself. And if you don't yet have Flipboard then what sort of crazy person are you?