Many sites pointed to use Feedly. So I started using it. After using it for some time my friend suggested me to use a personalized News Reader called Flipboard. I downloaded it and I loved it. I’m STILL using it. But, I believe change is essential to live a happy life. So, I thought let’s get back to Feedly. I logged into Feedly with my Google account and the feeds were the same as before. Reminding me of those days as a fresh Blogger. I used it for some days and I started liking it. I liked its simplicity but it lacked the personalization of Flipboard. So, now the question arises. Can Feedly be the ultimate news reader app? Which is the best app for the News-savvy? Flipboard or Feedly? Let’s find out. FYI: I’m going to compare here only the Android app of both the services. And the following are my own personal views. Let’s start with the design of both the Android apps.
UI/Design
Feedly has nice clean and simple design. Nothing fancy to attract the eyes. But it gives a satisfying user experience in terms of design. Transitioning between pages is great. A simple swipe gets the work done. The swipe transition has been integrated across all the corners of the app. Even to close an article, you just have to swipe from below. Things get fancy with Flipboard. A complete user interface that’s made to flip. A magazine style UI that comprises of authentic typography and excellent use of featured images. For sure Flipboard will eat more mobile data in comparison to Feedly, albeit, it can be controlled from the settings menu. In Feedly you get three transition options for the app – swipe, scroll, and stack (which is default). Along with that, it also offers the dark mode option for night owl readers. Flipboard has no such customization options to change the UI. You can just change the text size and make the app go full screen. Though I like Flipboard’s UI just as it is. The authenticity is all I want. Want night mode on your Android? Here’s how you can get it.
Grabbing the News
Feedly does a great job in grabbing feeds for any website on the internet. If you have no idea which news sites to follow then you can simply tap on your interested category (eg. Tech) and it’ll present you the most popular feeds to follow. Or else you can type in the name of the source. After you’ve found your source, Feedly will ask you to add it in a category. Flipboard goes one step ahead and shows social network results of the query you enter. If the source you want to follow is popular then it will probably have its own magazine customized by Flipboard itself, as shown in the screenshot on the right. If you’re following a less popular source then you won’t even get its RSS feeds. But, you can follow their Twitter or Facebook account to get updated. Other than that you can simply follow the topics you’re interested in and Flipboard will show you articles and news from the various sources around the globe for that particular topic. In comparison to Flipboard, Feedly is much accurate in grabbing feeds for any source on the internet. To get more accurate results in Feedly, you just need type in the source URL (eg. Guidingtech.com).
Content Management
Feedly provides great ease of use in content management. If you want to remove a Feed then you can simply hit Edit Content in the sidebar, select the Feeds and tap on Remove. Along with adding and removing content you can also create a Boards to categorize specific articles. It’s most helpful when doing some research on a topic. In competition with Boards, Flipboard has magazines. Any user can create a magazine of his own and also follow magazines created by other users. Removing content is as simple as drag and drop and the same for organizing different sources in the dashboard. It’s much easier to manage content on Feedly in comparison to Flipboard. In Flipboard when you’ve followed too many topics and sources, it just gets messed up with article and sources you really don’t care. And, it can take some time in unfollowing them. Whereas in Feedly, you can do that easily. iOS User? Here’s an in-depth review of Flipboard.
Reading Experience
Feedly provides a unified experience across the app in terms of reading experience. The typography provided is perfect for ease of reading. If you want to open an article directly into a browser then you can just choose the option to Open Webpage Directly. You can add the article to save it for later or else add it to a Board. Flipboard, on the other hand, doesn’t provide a unified reading experience. The popular sources on Flipboard are specially customized by the Flipboard team. Whereas, the less popular ones open in webview or as of now in a Chrome custom tab. Sometimes, the customized articles cause glitches when flipped. I mostly prefer to read the article in webview on Flipboard. Apart from that, you can personalize your reading experience by fine-tuning your Flipboard dashboard. Also, you can mute a website from getting the notification in the notification drawer. Want to personalize Notifications in Android? Here’s a cool way to do it.
Conclusion: Simplicity vs Personalization
Feedly is simple, easy to use and uniform across the app. Flipboard is beautiful, customizable and social. Now, it’s your turn to decide. Do you want an app that offers simplicity and uniformity or an app that is socially connected and personalized? Let us know you view down in the comments. ALSO READ: 5 Best RSS Feed Readers on Windows Store for Windows 10 PCs The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.
