Apps: The Best in Digital Magazines

The phrase is “news on demand” and with the Internet and new refinements in smartphone and tablet apps, the way Americans consume news these days would be almost unimaginable to previous generations. Here are must-have apps that you’ll want to have to stay in the know… on whatever you want to know.

With apps like Flipboard, it’s no wonder print publications are falling by the wayside. Whether on a smartphone or tablet, Flipboard delivers an amazing amount of information, in gorgeous layouts about the news and subjects that matter to you the most. Select your topics of interest and Flipboard presents a personalized digital magazine on the latest in almost any interest area you can imagine. It’s updated throughout the day and always current. You can save stories of interest and share them via email or social media.

There’s also Zite, an all-platform app that works a lot like Flipboard. That may be one reason Flipboard just acquired the technology that Zite uses to find and aggregate content. Zite is more of a specialized digital publication, with more niche categories to choose from. Perhaps not as slick looking as Flipboard, Zite helps find more user-generated content about more niche topics. I like it a lot, though it will eventually fold into Flipboard.

I also like Pulse, an app from the LinkedIn social media service. Pulse is a pure news feed, nicely designed and heavily slanted towards business and tech news that can be customized to meet your information needs. You can also see what high profile business users are posting. It’s a great tool that acts like a daily briefing on work-related topics.