Flipboard for Android now comes with audio

25 Oct 2012

Having introduced audio to its iOS app in May, Flipboard follows up with flip-through sounds for Android.

Flipboard users can now hear content from Flipboard’s Audio category, which includes music, radio segments, podcasts, news and audiobook extracts.

Channels in this category come from a variety of sources, such as BBC Radio 1, film magazine Empire, Penguin and The Economist,, as well as familiar names from the music industry, such as Ministry of Sound, All Tomorrow’s Parties and Snoop Dogg.

There are also channels curated by Flipboard, collating audio clips under themes such as Books, Tech, Education and, of course, a few music genres.

Users can also connect Flipboard to their SoundCloud account, if they have one, and access sound clips from the service this way.

Flipboard screenshot Flipboard screenshot

On the left is the list of channels available in Flipboard’s Audio category, on the right are some of Flipboard’s curated channels

A play button indicates that the content comes with audio and when users tap this a music note icon is added to the top bar. At any point this can be tapped to open up controls to play, pause or scan through the audio, so users can keep flipping and browsing content or even minimise the app and keep the audio playing.

Flipboard screenshot Flipboard screenshot

The left image shows what a sound file looks like in a stream, while the right image shows how the player controls can be called up even when browsing another category, such as Flipboard Picks

The updated Android app is available now on Google Play and an update for Nook and Kindle is expected in the next few days.

Elaine Burke is the host of For Tech’s Sake, a co-production from Silicon Republic and The HeadStuff Podcast Network. She was previously the editor of Silicon Republic.

editorial@siliconrepublic.com