News comes to people in various forms.  We get it from watching news on TV or reading newspapers or magazines or even on the web, but for some, their most reliable source of news is their closest friends or the resources they know and trust across the social web.

Flipboard saw the potential of digital social circles, focusing heavily on the iPad market at first.  The recent launch of the Samsung Galaxy S III brought a new opportunity for Flipboard, which revealed its plans to launch an Android version exclusively on the new smartphone.

But Flipboard for Android managed to beat the Galaxy S III to the market, after Valcho, a member of XDA-developers, extracted the APK file from a demo phone and made it available for other Android devices.  And now the leaked app’s been updated.

“According to the large numbers of people that have tried it and downloaded it, it is said to be running very well on smartphones like the Sony Xperia Arc, HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Samsung Galaxy S2, Galaxy S, and even on the old Samsung Galaxy Spica,” a post from Android Authority states.

“There are also reports of the Flipboard app working on Android tablets like the Sony Tablet S, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, and the Kindle Fire. This basically tells us that the Flipboard app isn’t designed to run solely on ICS devices, but also Gingerbread, Honeycomb and possibly other, more antiquated iterations of our beloved platform.”

Since it wasn’t meant for every Android devices, some who tried the app stated that they experienced frequent crashing as well.  But an over-the-air update from Flipboard fixed a lot of issues.  Version 1.8.4 is said to increase speed and stability, as well as new features.  One new feature is the ability to set a widget update period (never, weekly, hourly, or daily), and articles now open in a user’s default browser instead of a web view.

Flipboard on Android

Upon installation, you can customize your Flipboard app by choosing from 17 available categories such as general news, Technology, Science, Business, Music and Politics.  News on Flipboard comes from a range of sources such as the Los Angeles Times, ABC and the Huffington Post.

The app also features “Flipboard Picks” which is a selection of news stories collected by the Flipboard staff.

“[Flipboard Picks] was how I learned about an underwater hotel being built in Dubai that I probably wouldn’t have found otherwise,” Sean Captain, TechNewsDaily managing editor of GadgetBox MSNBC, said during his Flipboard on Android review.  He also mentioned that the app was buggy but noted that it was probably because he installed it on his Virgin Mobile Motorola Triumph phone which the app wasn’t compatible with.