Flipboard - A Social Magazine App for iPad

[Compile 'em all]

Step right up - give all your passwords, links to all the people you know and access to your private details to this service without thinking twice!

And for what? A few pretty screens?

Seems like people are getting dumber by the minute.

How is it any different than any iPhone game that you grant access to your Facebook or Twitter account?

Few pretty screens? Is that it? Why use an iPad at all? I mean it is just, you know, more convenient?

For those that don't know, Flipboard was co-founded by Eva Doll, a former senior iPhone engineer at Apple.

 

[0098386]

This is front page material?

 

[t0mat0]

I agree with Compile'em all:

Few pretty screens? Is that it? Why use an iPad at all? I mean it is just, you know, more convenient?

For those that don't know, Flipboard was co-founded by Eva Doll, a former senior iPhone engineer at Apple.

You use it, and think - hey, this works on the ipad, as it's got enough screen, this wouldn't work on an iPhone really. Then you think - why limit yourself? Wouldn't this rock much better on a HDTV? Or through a projector? Or via a virtualised iOS? Or through an Apple app widget on a 30" monitor?

This app shows the potential usefulness of having the ATV do apps. You could control via a remote/iphone.

Hopefully they'll sort the scrubbing video/swipe gesture confusion the UI is having, and scale up (as Scoble says - they could have gone with RackSpace over Amazon... we'll see how they scale - at least they're able to)

Evan Doll is the guy who lecturers the free Stanford iPhone Programming course, and has been involved with the iApps Project. Worth checking out CS106a, cS106b CS107 then CS193 I think for Evan and other lecturers on the iPhone Programming course. (the current course isn't being aired, but you can catch previous terms lecture series).

Shows you what you can do!

 

[Doju]

I believe it's deserving, its without a doubt one of the most well designed iPad apps to be released so far.

People are so cynical. Don't use it if you don't want to. They're not a password harvesting service. Get over yourselves, your Twitter updates about your Thursday night bowling team are surprisingly unhelpful to bigger corporations. They don't care.

 

[Eye4Desyn]

Isn't that the guy from Square?

Yep. Looks like he got himself a new couch from the money made during the Square transaction.

 

[GoCubsGo]

I believe it's deserving, its without a doubt one of the most well designed iPad apps to be released so far.

People are so cynical. Don't use it if you don't want to. They're not a password harvesting service. Get over yourselves, your Twitter updates about your Thursday night bowling team are surprisingly unhelpful to bigger corporations. They don't care.

You clearly don't understand how this app functions the way that it does.

 

[A Macbook Pro]

It wont let me add feeds, but Gizmodo worked for some reason. This app is absolutely amazing, if the connection issues sort out this might just overtake Pulse for my quick feed accessing.

 

[dicklacara]

Seriously, these apps are glorified scrapers with Apple's quality UI options.

Milk that popularity while it lasts. Such apps are soon going to be fighting over scraps.

The Social Network phase is already mature.

Can we actually move into productive apps that leverage distributed networks in native apps, please?

My first impression was similar to yours.

My second impression was: Oh no! This is just another magazine app-- we have lots of those, where 1 or 2 should suffice (ala book readers).

My third impression was: Wait a minute-- this is just an aggregator app-- and one with a pretty slick UI... there could be something to this.

If this is sufficiently customizable, and well implemented, it could bring the "stuff that interests me at the moment" to me in a "magical" way.

It could be kind of a "living Me Magazine"-- containing all the stuff that interests me, at my fingertips.

They show aggregation of FaceBook and Twitter (where's YouTube). What if I could add to that, say, sections for:

-- the forum threads I'm currently monitoring on AI or MR?
-- Financial (or other news) that interests me-- Earnings calls for AAPL, MSFT, etc.
-- local news and weather.
-- LiveCasts that I follow
-- my email and IMs
-- ratings/reviews on that new car/computer/camera I am consitering
-- news, photos, videos schedules, maps for the grandkids soccer games/practices
-- my calendar and contacts
-- those shopping lists I am making for: kids back to school clothes/supplies, groceries...

FlipBoard, then, would become more a UI element like CoverFlow"... kinda' a hyper app...

Then, take the concept a bit further-- To a corporate network, where the servers are secure and private (to the enterprise)... Doument storage and retrieval; collaboration; presentations; meetings...

.

 

[firestarter]

It was an acoustic rip off of Aphex Twin - Flim. I doubt they asked Richard D. James for the rights to use that in a video, but I guess they're not selling anything exactly.

It's a Jazz remake of flim by 'The Bad Plus'. The Bad Plus are a great band who do a lot of 'covers' like this - they're perfectly legit and 'copyright compliant'. Search for them on YouTube - they play this live and it's awesome.

 

[FightTheFuture]

That's just how lonelysandwich is. Haven't you ever listened to You Look Nice Today or watched that Square promo vid?

between :00 and :01 you can clearly see him doing the fishstick

 

[firestarter]

How is it any different than any iPhone game that you grant access to your Facebook or Twitter account?

It's not just pushing a single message out, it's lodging your password details with a central server and using that server to poll all your friend's details across Facebook. That's a LOT more intrusive, and they're going to wind up with a LOT more personal data.

Those games also have a clear business model. Sell game for money, profit!

Do you know what these guys have as their business model? It's a free app... so where's that revenue stream going to come from. Follow the money!

Few pretty screens? Is that it? Why use an iPad at all? I mean it is just, you know, more convenient?

Of course the iPad is about aesthetically appealing apps. But just because something looks good doesn't mean you should ignore common sense when you're asked to sign up.

For those that don't know, Flipboard was co-founded by Eva Doll, a former senior iPhone engineer at Apple.

And that means what exactly? The engineering is likely to be good, but it says nothing about the business model or privacy safeguards.

 

[Doju]

You clearly don't understand how this app functions the way that it does.

On the contrary…

 

[Manderby]

The half-life period of "history repeating" just seems to have gotten shorter.

Anyway: For those considering social networks as a source for content, have fun. For the others. Nothing to see here, move on.

 

[iPhoneHome]

I just got it and I love this app.

 

[Draythor]

Many apps start their lives as free apps to reach high ranking and publicity. Then they charge. But obviously, the few dollars they might charge eventually is just one source of revenue. They might top that with iAd, they might create a franchise around these functions and their dedicated customers might represent a certain advertising value to investors in the little company, when it comes to inviting venture capital.

Thanks for the info

 

[iSee]

Wow, I can't think of an app I like less to be informed of.

 

[Eye4Desyn]

Step right up - give all your passwords, links to all the people you know and access to your private details to this service without thinking twice!

And for what? A few pretty screens?

Seems like people are getting dumber by the minute.

Good point. But I'm not too concerned as there's not much to see on my facebook account because I intentionally don't post frequently enough and never post any of my photos there. Basically, I use facebook to just check-in with friends from time to time. Nonetheless, this app is an elegant way for me to glance at this information in a pinch.

 

[wolfshades]

All your personal data, and that of your friends!

For those worried about personal data being harvested - you could use anonymous accounts. You don't HAVE to use your true first and last name to create a Facebook account. Unless, you know, you really want that long-lost acquaintance from high school to be able to look you up. (I don't.)

 

[bbotte]

So I can't link my Twitter account or my Facebook account, it giveS me an error for both that flipboard is over capacity. So am I doing something wrong?

 

[jns2001]

Darn app is overloaded. It does not allow me to enter Facebook and Twitter.

 

[firestarter]

For those worried about personal data being harvested - you could use anonymous accounts. You don't HAVE to use your true first and last name to create a Facebook account. Unless, you know, you really want that long-lost acquaintance from high school to be able to look you up. (I don't.)

To make the app worthwhile, you would have to make sure all you network re-friended you if you were to make an anonymous account (and you'd be breaking Facebook's conditions).

Or you could have made your account anonymous in the beginning, and your friends could too. You could also avoid posting anything personal, or anything that would link back to you. In which case:
- You'd probably be in a <1% minority of Facebook users
- You and your anonymous friends wouldn't actually generate any interesting content for flipboard anyway.

So I can't link mt Twitter account or my Facebook account, it giveS me an error for both that flipboard is over capacity. So am I doing something wrong?

They seem to be doing the account scraping on their own servers. Too many signups=servers over capacity.

Running a service via central servers rather than having stand alone apps is a big cost for a company. Look out of some bigscale advertising or data harvesting in the future to recoup that investment.

 

[Draythor]

For those worried about personal data being harvested - you could use anonymous accounts. You don't HAVE to use your true first and last name to create a Facebook account. Unless, you know, you really want that long-lost acquaintance from high school to be able to look you up. (I don't.)

No, that's not true...

Once you sign up to Flipboard and give them your Twitter and Facebook information they:
OWN YOUR SOUL​

Seriously, people? Haven't we all signed up to something similar before? Isn't the very basic idea of this App to tailor information that YOU are interested in?

EDIT: Not a dig at you, wolfshades.​

 

[andiwm2003]

Step right up - give all your passwords, links to all the people you know and access to your private details to this service without thinking twice!

And for what? A few pretty screens?

Seems like people are getting dumber by the minute.

yup, quoted for truth.

I'm a bit surprised that MacRumors advertizes an individual app just because is looks good. I see huge security issues with this as well.

 

[mBox]

...Get over yourselves, your Twitter updates about your Thursday night bowling team are surprisingly unhelpful to bigger corporations. They don't care...

LOL! Thanks I needed that this morning

 

[andiwm2003]

What gave that away, genius? The fact that it's on the front page?

I believe it's deserving, its without a doubt one of the most well designed iPad apps to be released so far.

People are so cynical. Don't use it if you don't want to. They're not a password harvesting service. Get over yourselves, your Twitter updates about your Thursday night bowling team are surprisingly unhelpful to bigger corporations. They don't care.

reread you post and think about it again. then come back and give us your opinion again.