Flipboard Upgrade Brings Streamlined Navigation & LinkedIn Integration

Flipboard has released version 1.5 of its social newsreading app for the iPad, offering users an improved navigation system and content from new partners The Economist and LinkedIn.
The ability to navigate an increasing number of finely defined feeds, both RSS and social, is transforming the app into more of a magazine-style browser than a simple newsreading app.
This is largely because you can now explore an unlimited number of feeds (previously, the limit was 21) and conduct cross-network searches on a given subject without having to save the content to your main Flipboard feed. You will no longer have to “set up” your Flipboard in what CEO Mike McCue admits was “kind of an elaborate process” — now you can explore, save and share as you go.
You can pull up The Economist‘s feed, for instance, click on a tweet from The Economist mentioning that article to explore the publication’s Twitter profile, and then navigate to yet another article or an external link from its Twitter feed:


The browser-like experience is also enabled by a change in Flipboard’s storage structure. Previously, feeds were preloaded onto the iPad. Now, they’re loaded onto an external server that renders content at a much faster rate. You will still need to save feeds to your favorites to read them offline, however.
McCue says he wanted to achieve three goals in the redesign:

1. Let people to access a lot more content much more quickly. You can now quickly navigate across a limitless number of feeds, profiles and conversations even if you don’t subscribe to them.
2. Allow users to better navigate the content Flipboard has, particularly partner content. A new Content Guide is available at the top of every screen. It allows you to access favorites, search, social networks, content categories and highlighted sources. You can also create and save searches to pull in information about a subject from multiple social networks. Even better, individual articles can now be viewed full-screen with a single tap and, instead of closing and opening another article upon completion, you can simply swipe to access the next one.
3. Integrate LinkedIn. All of LinkedIn’s verticals, including its newsfeeds for 30 individual industries, have been seamlessly integrated into Flipboard’s navigation. In fact, we find it much easier to access LinkedIn’s various newsfeeds on Flipboard than we do on LinkedIn.com.

We also have to applaud Flipboard’s improved sharing features (pictured below) and a new “Popular on Flipboard” ribbon that highlights content others are reading.


Already the best among newsreading apps, it just keeps getting better.