Having already launched a Chinese-language app recently, iPad social magazine app Flipboard has used its latest upgrade to support the French language for users who set their location to France.
The iPad update also inherits Cover Stories, the algorithm the startup introduced to iPhone in December to show mobile readers quick “highlights” culled from friends’ reading links.
Flipboard began localising its right-hand content guide in December and January, with national big content brands relevant to the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, France, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The French guide includes Le Monde, the UK guide’s business section features paidContent:UK. Today heralds only the translation of the app’s core furniture text to French.
Since Cover Stories was designed to cater to more time-pressed mobile users, its appearance on iPad, which gets longer read times from leanback readers, seems unusual.
And since Cover Stories now occupies the first two fixed locations on Flipboard’s page one, the company has added a third page on which users can fix their favourite feeds. Cover Stories can also be removed by users.
The app upgrade comes with some design tweaks that let headlines run over, rather than under, page-lead story photographs – design that is slightly more akin to glossy magazines.