A collaboration between Spotspot, Method and Digital Wellbeing Labs, The Applounge is a brave new concept, blurring the lines between a social and retail space but more so in it’s experiment to bring digital products into a physical environment – however, with hundreds of thousands of Apps available and countless “expert guides” on newsagent’s shelves, the need for a considered curation of this content is certainly on the rise. Offering visitors/consumers the ability to peruse this digital content are a selection of iPhones and iPads – encased in Spotspot’s innovative ‘BouncePad’ prototype – and with the pick of Apps, and accompanying physical accessories, arranged into 3 curated collections, there’s something to fit everyone’s individual tastes. Innovative, inspirational and experimental, The Applounge is everything that London Design Festival is about…

Not that Flipboard is perfect, in fact presently it’s pretty far from that, but it’s the first genuine insight into the future of publishing that we’ve seen – the reality that you can view your social media content in a traditional magazine format is, for us, a feeling of at last beginning to live in the future you dreamed of as a child. The overwhelming feeling of potential that washes over you as you flick through a magazine that has been compiled from your chosen social media outlets, and that updates instantly, is truly staggering.

Shared items on Facebook and Twitter are instantly transformed into elegantly designed magazine articles, images are automatically – and gracefully – pulled in and there’s a number of options to bookmark and interact. Annoying, cutesy ‘web app’ copywriters have for years been telling us about the “super web magicary” being performed by any given application, but – without wanting to offer superfluous praise – it really feels, when spending time with Flipboard, that this fabled “web magicary” does in fact exist, and that the Silicon Valley entrepreneur’s have unearthed said ‘magicary’ and set it to work at the companies Californian headquarters.

Our recent Virgin Heathrow Clubhouse post as seen through Flipboard

Along with the ability to add in your own Twitter and Facebook accounts, there’s a number of preset or recommended feeds and some particularly well curated collections, such as FlipPhotos, FlipCool, FlipMusic and FlipDesign. So, even if you and your friends aren’t interesting enough, at least there will always be inspiring content on hand – and well designed that content will be.

Typographically and layout wise, Flipboard is streets ahead of anything we’ve seen – whereas, to date, the big names in publishing have offered little more than glorified PDFs of their print versions, Flipboard presents your personalised content in a unique, and seemingly ever-changing way, offering alternate displays for landscape and portrait and brilliant variation through each of the pages – which are changed by a sophisticated ‘flip’ as opposed to the customary, and rather clumsy, turn. There’s even a brilliant, constantly changing front cover.

Of course, it’s not all rosy, high demand upon launch saw some difficulties in adding Facebook and Twitter accounts – although all seems fine now – there’s no option for multiple Twitter accounts, and through lack of being able to tweet directly, it’s unlikely to replace your current Twitter client in a hurry, but, then should it? This is a ‘social media magazine’ after all.

Our most notable gripe is that of the current restriction to 9 sections, but really, for a first release – add in the factor that this is a free app, yes, FREE – Flipboard is a revelation, and the first real opportunity for iPad owners to thrust it under the nose of naysayers and shout “look, this is what it’s all about, it’s the fucking future” – and for that Flipboard, we salute you…..

Video demo and making of, right after the jump…..

Wallpaper*’s guides are essentially an app version of their hugely successful, and rather brilliant, Phaidon City Guides, with the added benefit of knowing how far the featured shops, bars, hotels and sights are from your current location. Currently available for their top 10 selling guides, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, London, Los Angeles, Milan, New York, Paris, Rome and Tokyo, Wallpaper*’s guides include a suitably high-brow ‘architour’ along with insiders tips, brilliant boutiques, iconic landmarks, neighbourhood guides and city escapes… at £2.39 a pop, if you’re travelling to one of said cities, they’re an essential purchase.

Design Hotels™ on iTunes
Wallpaper* on iTunes

2nd & 4th Images © 2009 Wallpaper* IPC Media Ltd.

Handmade in Italy by highly skilled artisans and crafted from premium Italian hand-picked, hand-tanned and hand-finished leather matched with a stylish Italian canvas, the 2UNFOLD offers it’s unisex audience eight unique ways in which to wear it, ranging from backpack through courier bag to clutch with a number of shoulder bag and briefcase style options along the way. Obsessively high quality, unique innovation and reasonable pricing (EUR 349) considering the effort, style and finish, this limited edition laptop bag is one of a kind and is in fact somewhat of a design classic, move quickly, like many of their previous products, we can see these beauties selling like hotcakes.