This app will remind you why magazines were so good and better than endless scrolling

These days it’s so easy to get sucked into consuming content that aligns with your own opinions. For example, one of my favourite news apps is the BBC. It has a great layout and a wide range of news categories. You can even customise the topics you see in your news feed, which is great for getting content related to your areas of interest.

The only problem is that all the news comes from a single news provider and therefore from a single perspective. Some may not see this as a problem, but I’ve been thinking lately that I’d like to expand my knowledge, especially on unfamiliar topics.

Good options are Google News and Inoreader, but my new favorite is Flipboard. This community magazine lets you choose from thousands of topics before filling out all the best stories based on your interests. You can also create your own magazine with curated stories and share them with others.

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This is part of a regular series exploring the apps we couldn’t live without. Read them all here.

To understand why I love Flipboard so much, I have to take you back to when I was 15. Back then, my biggest interest was movies, and my unlimited movie pass allowed me to indulge my movie-going desires. Watching the latest blockbusters and alternative indies was only half the fun, though. I also loved reading about how movies were made and what new releases were coming out. I was able to do that thanks to the magazine Empire.

As each monthly issue made its way through the mail system, I eagerly awaited the opportunity to get my hands on the magazine. There was something about receiving the physical product and the feeling of turning the pages. The whole process brought me so much joy, and much of that was due to the format.

Flipboard App

(Photo source: Future)

Fast forward 25 years and while you can still buy physical magazines, including Empiremost people consume content digitally, and so do I. You can’t replicate the same experience with a digital magazine, but Flipboard gave it a pretty good shot.

To mimic page-flipping, Flipboard cycles through the header pages using a page-flipping animation. It’s pretty basic, but it’s better than the endless scrolling that’s common on social media feeds. There’s a scroll mode, but I prefer the magazine-flipping option. My only criticism is that the flipping is vertical, not horizontal. The latter is the standard implementation for almost all magazines, so it’s confusing that Flipboard has opted for something different.

Flipboard App

(Photo source: Future)

News feeds are populated by first selecting a set of topics, curators and magazines you want to follow. Flipboard offers a wide range of options, but I chose UK News, English Football, Photography and Technology. This gave me a good range of topic types and represented the news I was most interested in. These topics can be updated at any time, so if the results aren’t working, simply select new topics.

In addition to your personalized news feed, you can also discover more content through the Explore tab. Here, you can browse by category and dig into Magazines. I especially like the Community tab, which lets you browse featured curators and discover new content. You can find specific curators that you’ll want to come back to, and that’s one of Flipboard’s most powerful features. It’s not just about the news that Flipboard wants to show you; you can also get independently curated content.

Flipboard App

(Photo source: Future)

When it comes to reading content, one of the best things about Flipboard is Reader View. It turns the text into white and overlays it on a black background, making it much easier to read. It also removes all the menus you see on the web version and any distracting ads. It makes the experience much more enjoyable than just reading a bunch of web articles.

Flipboard is an innovative alternative to the news experience. By centering the reader’s experience around turning pages and selecting magazines, the creators have created an app that stands out from almost every other news app. Given that it’s free, why not give it a try and see if it changes your news reading experience?

Download the Flipboard app on iOS Or Android