It's not often I flip for something...

Last week I spent some time catching up on my reading list.  Specifically the few blogs I read I had gotten quite far behind.  After spending time reading in from of my computer I looked down to my desk and saw the most interesting little device... "Maybe THIS can help me keep up with all these blogs" I pondered aloud, much to the irritation of my co-workers.  That device: my iPhone.

So I'm an idiot - I hadn't thought of using my phone to read up on my blogs.  I do a quick App Store search for an RSS reader (most blogs provide an RSS feed) and WHAMMO!! I was dramatically underwhelmed at the options.  Either too clunky, ugly or expensive (expensive in this case is anything > $0).

Enter Flipboard

Quite possibly the most beautiful app on the iPhone, both in it's simplicity and design, Flipboard is an information centre where you can flip (literally) through all the info you want.  What info? Anything you choose.  Twitter stream? Check. Facebook? Check. RSS feeds of blogs? Local newspaper sports section? Instagram feed? Check Check Check.  Coupled with my google reader account, I could literally add any updating page to my Flipboard and get my news/info fix in once app.  All in one place.  Check it out:

Other features include Cover story, basically it picks what type of info is popular at the time, either Facebook photos or tweets or blogs or news stories, and bunches them all on the from page for you to flip through.   One of my favourite features is that any tweet or post with a photo or video link is automatically displayed,  thus the pretty flipping you see in the demo.  It's fast too, no waiting for additional data to load.  Plus you can post tweets, FB updates and comments right from Flipboard.

There are a couple of quirks, getting all the pages you want on there took a bit of figuring, also  the updates from Facebook seem to skip a few once in a while (admittedly it's a bug, but I'm not much of a FB guy, so if I miss a post about someone's kid's new PJ's, I'll live). Also you won't be able to put EVERYTHING on there unless you use Google reader, therefore needing a (free) Google account.

All your info in one place, fast, looks great, and well designed layout.  All for the low price of $0.00.  Sorry to be pitching an ad here, but it's really changed the way i use my phone, which is saying something indeed.