Flipboard Updates With Instagram Support, Speed Increase

iPad: Flipboard, the social “digital magazine” for the iPad, dropped an update today that not only added support for social photography network Instagram, but also a neat social search function and some awesome speed improvements that make it much more usable.Flipboard was pretty cool when it first came out, and it has slowly been stepping up its game ever since, first adding Flickr and Google Reader support, and now adding Instagram support along with a bunch of usability improvements. You can add Instagram’s photo feed just like any other feed, and the social search function lets you see posts across all your different feeds on a specific subject, by using keywords and hashtags.

My personal favourite part of the update, though, is the speed increase. I like Flipboard a lot, but it moved pretty darn sluggishly before, which is annoying when you’re trying to flip through articles. This update makes the app twice as fast at loading content, making it way more usable than it was. While I’d still love to see some more basic RSS support — since right now you can only see your entire Google Reader feed — this update definitely brings the app much closer to “must have” status rather than “must see”. It’s a very nice way to read through your favourite sites and social networks. Hit the link to see the other changes in the update.

Flipboard is a free download for the iPad only.

Flipboard [iTunes Store via Flipboard Blog]