How I stay up to date on the iPad Pro: Flipboard, ESPN, CNN, NY Times, and The Week

Looking at the bottom row of my iPad’s homescreen (which is essentially my laptop’s desktop, since the iPad Pro has replaced my laptop), you get a sense of the things that I check on a regular basis to absorb the news. I referenced the many ways I receive content to read on a daily basis back in September, but the iPad has changed a few of those habits.

Flipboard is my preferred all-in-one feed aggregater. I’ve subscribed to 39 content areas, mostly focused on Technology, Mobile, Games, and Humor. Most of my time in Flipboard is spent via my iPhone as its a terrific user experience to quickly run through articles and content. In most cases, when I see something I want to read in Flipboard, I add it to Pocket to read later.

ESPN is, well, ESPN. I check ESPN multiple times throughout the day. I prefer the mobile website to the actual app.

CNN is a great source for world news. I use the app (vs. the website) and I feel like CNN does a great job of “just the facts.”

On a dialy basis, I read the NY Times, which provides more editorial content than CNN. In the morning, I’ll read it on the iPad Pro while I’m getting ramped up in the morning. I get up early – 4:50am – which gives me a few hours to get my email to Inbox Zero, review my calendar and tasks for the day (stored in Evernote), catch up on Twitter via Hootsuite, and work on blog posts. I also like to catch up on what’s happening in the world, and the NY Times is my preferred publication for that. 

Once a week, I read The Week, usually on Saturday or Sunday morning. The Week is a great summary-type publication that takes the events from the past week and gives a perspective on them from all sides.

Additional thoughts
I don’t read Pocket articles on the iPad Pro. This device is not meant to be used in portrait mode, in my opinion. It’s just too huge. Which is fine for me, because I have the iPhone 6S Plus, which is big enough to comfortably read on.

I would guess 90% of my time reading these publications on the iPad Pro is done in the morning. Once my day starts, I’m on my iPhone most of the time, and when I do get a few hours on the iPad Pro to “work,” I don’t have time to catch up on news. When I do, its usually on the iPhone when I’m waiting in line or I have just a few minutes to quickly see what’s going on. By night time, I rarely use the iPad Pro, preferring to quickly knock things out on my iPhone if I need to, knowing I’ll be up bright and early to sit down with the iPad.