Elegantly designed and a joy to use, Flipboard seemed such a perfect fit for tablets and smartphones that the team behind it appeared content with holding back from rolling out a desktop version. Till now, that is.
Announcing it as “a major new frontier on our quest to build the world’s best personal magazine,” the Palo Alto-based company on Tuesday introduced Flipboard for desktop.
It seems like the decision to finally launch a Web version came down to factors such as improvements in responsive Web design, which, as the team says, “makes for easier (and prettier) reading and navigation.”
While different in feel to the cross-platform tablet and smartphone versions, Flipboard’s desktop effort still features its familiar clean and uncluttered design, with a mix of text and images that should look great on any screen size.
If you already have a Flipboard account, you can sign in to reach your personalized sections, with articles and display-filling images just a mouse click away.
The team says that to create “optimal layouts and a pacing that feels natural for Web browsing,” it computes “the relevancy of stories and photos and analyze the type of content – such as images or text – that’s on a page.”
It also uses algorithms based on your interests to pull up recommend topics and magazines, hopefully leading you to additional engaging content.
Although you’ll likely prefer using Flipboard on your tablet or smartphone considering the wonderfully fluid interface the mobile versions offer, the new Web-based alternative presents users with an additional viewing option, and for those without a mobile device it offers a first chance to explore a piece of software enjoyed by many and used by millions over the four years since it launched.
You can check out Flipboard for desktop here.
