Flipboard For iPad – [REVIEW]

If any of you follow me and my inane tweets on Twitter (@AppSlap – shameless plug and follower grab DONE!) then you may have noticed me, rather annoyingly, umm’ing and ahh’ing over whether to purchase Apples hot little tablet device the iPad.  Well yesterday, I couldn’t resist any longer and finally took the plunge.

Now thoughts of guilt aside, this is an amazing device that has now well and truly relegated my iPhone 4 to the sidelines and has, so far, not been put down. When uploading my apps onto the device I was in search for an app that can truly showoff the iPads abilities and I stumbled upon a little gem of an app called Flipboard. I apologize that this is an iPad-only app and is unlikely to ever be migrated to the iPhone or iPod Touch due to its functionality.

Flipboard markets itself with a heading that I think sums the app up quite well: ‘Your Flipboard is everything you care about in one place.  It’s your magazine.  It’s your Flipboard.’  And Flipboard is exactly that – a magazine of your life and interests!

Flipboard allows you to customize your ‘magazine’ with up to 21 different sections or articles.  These range from FlipPhotos made up of various different, often amazingly detailed, photography from around the web to FlipGaming, containing articles from some of the webs biggest names in online gaming news such as GamerPro, GameSpot.com and Joystiq.

One of the most impressive aspects of the application however is its integration with social networking sites Twitter and Facebook.  You can access both of these services through the app and see your life truly merge into the application.  New Facebook posts or Twitter Tweets (or twits?) are displayed in various forms from a simple quote on the page to a full page image.  If a Twitter message contains a link to say, a review, it will even often display this page along with the original Twitter message.  While this is beautiful to look out it does make it hard to follow every Twitter message or Facebook post however so do be warned.

Flipboard is a classic example of style over substance in many ways when it comes to the Twitter and Facebook integration.  The FlipPhotos, FlipGaming and various other news sources fit into the app perfectly allowing the user to catch up on the latest bits of information that matter to them.  Clicking on a snippet of an article will bring it up in its entirety in perfect composition. 

However if you are a heavy Facebook or Twitter user that likes to keep an eye on every single post or, in Twitter’s case, your @replies or DM’s, then while still a highly recommended app, Flipboard wont be replacing your current Twitter application of choice just yet but, in my opinion, Flipboard should be on every iPad owners device from the moment they pick it up.  Having been using this app quite a lot since purchasing the iPad I have come to realize that I am quite a shallow person in some ways excusing some imperfections in the face of complete beauty.  In simpler terms this app is the Kim Kardashian of apps. 

It’s absolutely stunning to look at, and in a nutshell, as a FREE app you simply cannot go wrong with Flipboard. Download it now, below!