The popular Flipboard iPad news application finally launched its brand new iPhone app late last night. The Flipboard app, which enables users to create an attractive digital magazine on their iPad or iPhone, imports links that friends have shared on Facebook and Twitter. In addition, the app finds other links from relevant media sources and compiles all of the links into an attractive magazine-style layout. Although Flipboard was voted the app of the year in 2010 and has had over 4.2 million downloads, the popular app remains free.
Unfortunately, immediately after the iPhone product launched late last evening, a variety of problems began to surface. Initially, iPhone users complained that they were unable to download or update the app. Although that issue was quickly addressed, the influx of new users and traffic promptly caused Flipboard to completely crash.
The official Flipboard Twitter account tweeted out the following:
“Due to high demand, our service is currently down. We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.”
Flipboard, which is currently not profitable, has raised a total of $60.5 million in funding from Kleiner Perkins, Ashton Kutcher, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and several other sources. Although Flipboard is losing money, the company has developed relationships with 60 powerful media partners such as USA Today and Vanity Fair and is working to monetize those relationships moving forward.
The technical glitches are a momentary problem that Flipboard should be able to quickly resolve. The new iPhone app has been widely praised by industry experts and will assist the company in building a larger user base that they can monetize to ensure long-term financial stability and profitability.
UPDATE:
“Due to high demand, Flipboard is experiencing service issues. We are currently working as quickly as possible to resolve the situation. We have turned off account creation for now to restore the service and ensure existing users have a great experience. Please follow us on Twitter @Flipboard for updates as the day progresses. We apologize deeply for this inconvenience and thank you for your patience.”
UPDATE (7:45PM EST):
“We’re starting to slowly open back up to new users, who should now be able to set up their Flipboard on iPhone. Once you’ve downloaded Flipboard from the iTunes App Store, select “Get Started,” choose topics of interest, hit “Done” and create your Flipboard. Select the red ribbon and tap Accounts to create your own Flipboard Account. Existing users who already have a Flipboard Account on their iPad can launch Flipboard for iPhone and sign in to get all their favorite Flipboard content.”
[Sources Include: Flipboard, The Next Web, & CNET]
