Flipboard (for Android)

Flipboard, one of the first apps that sold many on the idea of the iPad being more than an oversized iPhone, makes its first jump to the Android platform, as a smartphone app. Compatible with Android 2.2 and higher, the free Flipboard for Android delivers the same excellent social reading experience, albeit in smaller, slightly tweaked form. Flipboard for Android has a few niggles?namely the lack of dedicated offline reading and the lack of a dedicated tablet version?but it's still a slick, highly accessible Android reading app that now features Google+ and YouTube support.

The Flipboard ExperienceYou'll be familiar with Flipboard for Android if you've spent time with Flipboard (for iPad)?(Free, 4.5 stars). It features a large rectangular Cover Stories panel featuring highlighted recent articles, and smaller square panels that showcase the latest articles from the sources to which you've subscribed. If the article has an image, it's displayed as a thumbnail that fronts the panel. Overall, the interface, despite being smaller than the iPad version's, looks great is surprisingly uncramped. News Republic, a rival app, is a bit visually cluttered in comparison?and it features advertising at the bottom of the screen.

There are two differences of note from the iPad version of Flipboard: You navigate the Flipboard for Android interface by swiping up or down, not horizontally as with Flipboard for iPad. The change is a welcome, as it feels more natural to navigate with your thumb when using a phone. In addition, Flipboard only displays one article block per screen?the iPad version shows multiple. Don't consider this a drawback, however. This limitation prevents small, hard-to-read panels.

By default, you can't read articles without an internet connection, but you can save individual pages for offline reading if you have an Instapaper, Pocket, or Readability account. Google Currents (Free, 3.5 stars), and Android news aggregator, lets you save articles to your device without third-party apps. Flipboard for Android offers numerous ways to share content: Bump, Facebook, the newly added Google+, Skype, Twitter, email, and many more. I like the variety offered here. You can also leave comments on articles, and view articles in their original forms on their respective Web pages.

Flipboard for Android contains a dedicated YouTube section that lets you view popular videos, or subscribe to a channels simply by tapping the "+" icon located next to a channel's name. A trailer for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter streamed smoothly over a Wi-Fi connection.

Flipping Out for Flipboard
Flipboard for Android, much like Flipboard for iPad, is a superb alternative to standalone RSS feed readers, browsing individual sites, and following Facebook and Twitter feeds. Being smartphone-centric, it's not quite as easy to read as the iPad version, which displays articles on a magazine-size 9.7-inch display. Still, Flipboard is an excellent Android phone app that's worthy of an Editors' Choice award.

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