| Cult of Mac

Flipboard CEO (verbally) flips off Apple News

By

flipboard
Flipboard is a rival to Apple News in the news aggregation space.
Photo: Flipboard

The CEO and co-founder of Flipboard has some harsh words for Apple’s rival Apple News aggregation app.

Speaking at the Code Media conference, Mike McCue said that Apple News is “a product … living in the past,” and is lacking behind Flipboard in some very important ways.

Flipboard, Stagehand, and other awesome apps of the week

By

Awesome Apps
'Appy weekend!
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

It’s the weekend, which means that it’s time to ditch all the chores you had planned and instead sit down and try out some of the week’s most significant new apps.

From a tremendous “reverse platformer” to a nifty attempt at revolutionizing your magazines-reading experience, here are the apps and app updates that intrigued us this week.

Flipboard’s Smart Magazines make your favorite topics easier to digest

By

flipboard
Smart Magazines are available on Android and iOS now.
Photo: Flipboard

Flipboard is rolling out a big update to its mobile apps today to introduce Smart Magazines, a new feature that puts the best stories from your favorite sources in one place.

Smart Magazines are tailored to your personal interests and completely customizable, so you get the content you’re most interested in more easily.

What Apple News gets wrong that Twitter Moments gets so right

By

moments_2
Twitter Moments is the news of the future and Apple News will get left behind.
Photo: Twitter

The way we consume news is changing at a rapid pace, and both Apple and Twitter are trying to cater to readers’ need for speed and convenience.

iOS 9’s new Apple News app and the recently launched Twitter Moments both exist because millennials aren’t reading the newspaper every morning or watching news broadcasts in the evening. We get our news primarily from the Internet, often without having to click on articles or read hundreds of words for context.

Online media’s big push toward keeping news relevant and immediate caters to our ever-shrinking attention spans. For better or worse, we’ve gravitated toward bite-size information and entertaining listicles.

Twitter figured that out long ago. Apple still hasn’t.

Flipboard adds rating system to head off Apple News

By

Get more of what you like and less of what you don't with Flipboard's new rating system.
Get more of what you like and less of what you don't with Flipboard's new rating system.
Photo: Flipboard

Seminal magazine-style news aggregation app Flipboard is aiming to compete with Apple News by introducing a system that lets users rate stories and ultimately adjust the mix of their home feed.

“No matter where you are on Flipboard, if you see something you like and want to get more of it in your Cover Stories, tap ‘More like this,'” says the Flipboard website, “If you’d rather see less of something, tap ‘Less like this.’”

Hit list: All the apps and services Apple tried to kill at WWDC 2015

By

Tim Cook WWDC 2015
Apple's had some bold words for its competitors today.
Photo: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac

Once again, Apple has shown its desire to be your go-to for everything you do in your life.

During its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote this morning, the iPhone maker talked up software updates, services and new functionalities aimed at making several of its competitors’ offerings redundant.

Here are the things Apple’s trying to take out with new stuff at WWDC 2015.

Flipboard brings its gorgeous magazine app to the web

By

Photo: Flipboard
Photo: Flipboard

Flipboard has taken the leap from mobile to desktop. What started as one of the first iPad apps is now accessible through any modern browser via Flipboard.com, a beautiful web interface for consuming online content.

Like the iPad and iPhone app, you can not only read articles from sites you follow, but also create custom “magazines” based on sources you choose.