Flipboard for Android debuting on Galaxy SIII

By Boz
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Grand Master

Boz

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On top of new hardware, today's Samsung event will apparently see the launch of an exclusive Flipboard app, which marks the first time the visual reading app has appeared on Android. Unfortunately for everyone using a current Android device, Flipboard for Android will be exclusive for a time to the Galaxy S III, according to Slashgear. Their early hands-on with the device shows that it's much like the iOS version, with the added ability to browse your news via a large homescreen widget.

Flipboard also just launched a teaser page saying the app "will be available on select Android mobile phones" in the coming months.

http://www.theverge....-iii/in/2760821

So I guess they saw how Instagram exploded on Android and have finally realized that Android is the platform to be on. Rush rush to Android Flipboard guys, that's where the gold is :D

Grand Master

techbeck

Posted
Posted

So I guess they saw how Instagram exploded on Android and have finally realized that Android is the platform to be on. Rush rush to Android Flipboard guys, that's where the gold is :D

I think you will find more and more apps becoming available for Android. Considering the Android OS has the majority of the market, devs would be fools not to put forth a little extra effort (if they are having that many problems) and write more for Android.

Grand Master

Jan Veteran

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http://www.theverge....-iii/in/2760821

So I guess they saw how Instagram exploded on Android and have finally realized that Android is the platform to be on. Rush rush to Android Flipboard guys, that's where the gold is :D

Or because it was insanely popular on iOS it's bound to do well on other platforms from free advertising...

Grand Master

Boz

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Or because it was insanely popular on iOS it's bound to do well on other platforms from free advertising...

Nah.. gaining 30 million users in a month is hardly because of advertising. It definitely helped because new Android found out about it's availability, but the fact is that they were at a specific number on iOS and weren't moving this rapidly. It only happened when they came out on Android. It's more of the fact that sheer number of Android users wanted it and bam, this is what happens. It's a case study on why Android is far better platform for developers and popularity of startups.

I mean seriously, they more than doubled their users in a month that it took them 18 months previously. There is no advertising and good press that can shift these numbers this much.

Grand Master

Hell-In-A-Handbasket

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Posted

Nah.. gaining 30 million users in a month is hardly because of advertising. It definitely helped because new Android found out about it's availability, but the fact is that they were at a specific number on iOS and weren't moving this rapidly. It only happened when they came out on Android. It's more of the fact that sheer number of Android users wanted it and bam, this is what happens. It's a case study on why Android is far better platform for developers and popularity of startups.

I mean seriously, they more than doubled their users in a month that it took them 18 months previously. There is no advertising and good press that can shift these numbers this much.

/face palm

First off, that reasoning of yours was argued and proven many times opposite in another " coming to android" thread you created.

Also FlipBoard has been requested to be Android since FlipBoard came out, if your reasoning was correct, it wouldn't be an exclusive for the Gal SIII, and it wouldn't be for " select Android ". It would have been out concurrently with the other versions.

And above all it is from advertising that it has it's popularity, the advertising of " word of mouth ". The many and many of people since FlipBoard came out it has been requested ( it's just about on every App to Get list, as well as Android App Request list ), it is just now coming out, as an exclusive. Which to me at least, says that they didn't care enough until somebody wrote a fat check.

As far as moving this rapidly,, you do realize that when one of the most requested apps on mobile's comes to another platform, it's expected it's not going to be slow. Because many people have been waiting for it from the start, as well as the Word Of Mouth Advertising and recommendations from Websites reviews. So yes it's userbase is going to jump rapidly, but from the apps quality, not androids, as it could go to PC/OSX and it would still jump higher then when it first came out for iOS

Grand Master

Nashy

Posted
Posted

Why the hell are you lot arguing about why it's going to Android. Who the hell cares!!! It's a friggin app that's popular, why would ANY developer need a reason other than "They have lots of users". Seriously, this is probably the most pointless, nerdy and friggin stupid argument of read on Neowin.

Grand Master

techbeck

Posted
Posted

Exclusive to the Galaxy SIII? WTF? Android really doesn't need forced fragmentation due to business deals like this on top of the fragmentation issues that already exist :(

I am sure this is on a temp/promotional thing going on here. It will come to all of Android probably soon after.

Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
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http://www.theverge....-iii/in/2760821

So I guess they saw how Instagram exploded on Android and have finally realized that Android is the platform to be on. Rush rush to Android Flipboard guys, that's where the gold is :D

Available on select android handsets.... What was that thing android wasn't again...

Grand Master

Hell-In-A-Handbasket

Posted
Posted

I think it will be a subset of android phones that get flipboard not all Android phones.

Hopefully all of them get it, I think a majority of it is server side anyway ( page layout and feed retrieval )

FlipBoard is an Awsome app, the more that can use it the more official feeds it will get ( like Engadget and couple others )

Grand Master

Hell-In-A-Handbasket

Posted
Posted

Kinda doubt that. They will lose out on a lot of money if they limit the phones. No reason to limit it really.

They could be doing how they did it when it first came out, was invite only, had to sign up on a list so they could upgrade their back end as they went, not mad house all at once.

They could be doing the Gal first, upgrading capacity as needed, then same with other phones, then with the rest.

Grand Master

Hell-In-A-Handbasket

Posted
Posted

That's not what select handsets mean.

Don't know if that's a reply to me or somebody else.

If me, it could be like it was originally, select limited release so they could upgrade backed as needed

Grand Master

Boz

Posted
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Available on select android handsets.... What was that thing android wasn't again...

Maybe if you understood what's happening in the development process you would realize why they are doing it this way.

Flipboard is a very specific type of app that tied their UI to the single resolution with the animations and layout. It is a bit harder to target the same type of UI on various devices and different resolutions due to the way they designed it, not because Android is fragmented.

The bottom line is how you designed the app. The reason they are launching with Galaxy S3 is publicity but I can guarantee you that the same app will work on Galaxy Nexus due to the screen resolution. They are most likely trying to port their existing UI and it's not as flexible to work with different resolution and scale properly.

They wouldn't have had this problem if they designed the app from the ground up for Android first.

When you design for Android, and follow the guidelines and not work with absolute layouts in your UI the app will work on all devices just fine. That's why Android deals with views and units in DPs (density independent pixels) and SPs instead of standard pixels and has attributes on objects like weight and deals with linear, relative and other types of layouts.

Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

Maybe if you understood what's happening in the development process you would realize why they are doing it this way.

Flipboard is a very specific type of app that tied their UI to the single resolution with the animations and layout. It is a bit harder to target the same type of UI on various devices and different resolutions due to the way they designed it, not because Android is fragmented.

.

You just said, they do it because fragmentation makes it harder to develop the app, but android isn't fragmented. you have to decide.

Grand Master

Boz

Posted
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Umm, yes they would.

Based on what? I am building Android apps. I never had a problem with any of the apps to run on various Android devices. The only limitation is where you target a minimum SDK which today is really Android 2.x. And there are things like Android Compability Libraries that work ICS 4.0 APIs (http://developer.and...ty-library.html) that allows you to use ICS features and code that works fine on older versions of Android too (it even goes down to Android 1.6).

Tell me specifically why they would have problems? Give me examples. Because from my perspective as a developer I don't really see it.

EDIT: Now, there are specific APIs you can use for TouchWiz (Samsung Android devices) or MotoBlur (for Motorola devices) or HTC Sense (HTC android devices) but those are specific manufacturers based APIs that are meant to tap into their specific UI abilities of their Android modifications. But even that's not a problem. You can choose to use it or not and you can check whether or not an Android device is supporting any of those APIs before you use them.

Grand Master

Vice

Posted
Posted

That was RIM BS that was being tossed out. RIM called android a cesspool concerning piracy.

That is not accurate at all. Many developers have spoken out about the insanely high piracy rates on Android and some of those have said they are no longer willing to develop apps for the platform as a result. This article in Wired posted just one day ago shows a developer that had a 90% piracy rate of their brand new football manager game on Android. http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/05/wired-uk-android-game-piracy/

Grand Master

Hell-In-A-Handbasket

Posted
Posted
various devices and different resolutions due to the way they designed it, not because Android is fragmented.

That's what people mean by fragmented.

And you say it's not, yet Epic and a host of AAA Developers say it is. You keep saying your a developer, what have you developed? Have you just downloaded the SDK, or actually published something

As far as FlipBoard, I would have to say its just a staggerd launch, why they are spitting up the devices like they are. Because I think the majority of stuff is server side the actual app has to do verry little. If they did all devices at once, I feel the increase in load would put their servers down, from day 1 they didn't like that thought.

What they are doing now is the same as when they brought out the app for IOS, except with iOS they couldn't hold off devices and had to do invites, as for iOS they were all the same, where with android they can limit it based on device instead of signups

*edit - and FlipBoard doesn't use Absolute layouts, the layout is dynamic based on the content it's pushing. Even changing each time it's opened. So it can't be how you think it is working.

Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

Based on what? I am building Android apps. I never had a problem with any of the apps to run on various Android devices. The only limitation is where you target a minimum SDK which today is really Android 2.x. And there are things like Android Compability Libraries that work ICS 4.0 APIs (http://developer.and...ty-library.html) that allows you to use ICS features and code that works fine on older versions of Android too (it even goes down to Android 1.6).

Tell me specifically why they would have problems? Give me examples. Because from my perspective as a developer I don't really see it.

EDIT: Now, there are specific APIs you can use for TouchWiz (Samsung Android devices) or MotoBlur (for Motorola devices) or HTC Sense (HTC android devices) but those are specific manufacturers based APIs that are meant to tap into their specific UI abilities of their Android modifications. But even that's not a problem. You can choose to use it or not and you can check whether or not an Android device is supporting any of those APIs before you use them.

Density independent pixels and scalable graphics and all that are great, if you don't care about your app looking like **** and conforming to different size devices.

For a good app it needs to be specifically designed for the device, for high res devices you need the proper size images for the proper size "buttons", then some of those devices with the same res can be up to 2 inches different in size, so one of them would have fewer and bigger but higher density thumbs which needs to be coded, but can to some degree be done with intelligent scaling algorithms.

Tis same problem recurs with every different resolution and screen size. Resolutions reasonably close can be fit into the same GUI, just be using flow and filling in white space and padding. But you gave to take physical screen size into account separately. A 3.5 inch device and a 4.5 inch device with the same res can't use the same layout, either one would have to big buttons or the other to small, or one would have to much padding while the other the icons would be on top of each other, one would have shap graphics, the other blurry.

Vectors would fix some of these problems, but they wouldn't work for flipboard and it's graphics anyway. And would just fix the blurriest, not the size and screen size and layout issues.

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