Flipboard for Android is Here

The same way I bid a tearful farewell to my long time buddy, Retro Camera app when Instagram became available on Android is exactly what I did with my favourite news reader application on Android, Pulse. This is after the .apk file of the most popular news aggregation application on iOS devices (iPhone and iPad) leaked online. Folks, no need for waiting, Flipboard for Android is not a rumour anymore.

The .apk file was ripped and uploaded to the forums of  Android development hacker site XDA Developers after successful ripping from its exclusive device, the newly-unveiled Samsung Galaxy S III. With the phone yet to hit the markets and only a few in the hands of reviewers, it is astonishing how this happened so fast but then again that is what happens in the computing world. Thanks to Valcho who uploaded the ripped Flipboard for Android app to the XDA Developers forums, this page from the Flipboard official website (as shown below) has been overtaken by events and can as well be said to be obsolete.

Flipboard for Android, like Instagram, was an iOS exclusive application whose availability on the Android platform has been long awaited. It has finally landed in an unorthodox way (who gives a damn anyway?). They say the end justifies the means. So download it here.

First Impressions with Flipboard for Android

The downloadable .apk installer is compact (2.32 Mb) unlike Instagram which was very bulky (at 16 Mb). I must warn would-be users that this app is a true data guzzler. It milked 32 Mb from my device on just flipping through six news articles. This can be verified by the massive amounts of data it will store on your local storage (the app is movable to sd card so your internal memory is spared the strain). Mine has so far stored 17.54 Mb on the sd card; I am sure that number will grow with time.

Once installed, which you can easily do by transferring the application to your sd card if you downloaded via a PC or directly if you downloaded directly on your smartphone and allowing installation of apps from unknown sources, you will be able to literally “flip” through news articles from major news outlets. You first select the categories you like. There is for instance Games, Technology, Business, Politics, Celebrities etc. News content is aggregated and delivered based on these categories of your liking.

I just liked the whole simple idea of flipping virtual pages on my phone just like I would with a normal newspaper. Flipboard for Android simplifies the whole process and makes catching up with the latest be it in sports, that favourite tech column on AllThingsD or celebrity gossip fun. Plus you can share all the information you are reading on Flipboard in an instant. (It even has inbuilt Facebook and Twitter streams)

Enjoy flipping!