Material, a sexy Flipboard competitor, comes to the iPhone

Inq’s Material, a beautiful Flipboard-like app that delivers relevant news and videos, launched for Android back in February. Now the free app has finally come to the iPhone.

While there are quite a few news-reading apps out there and Flipboard holds the dominant position, Material sets itself apart with design and intelligent curation. As I wrote previously when Material debuted at CES 2013 in January, the app recommends news based on what’s happening in your Facebook and Twitter feeds.

While your interests change every day depending on the activity, you can make those interests permanent. Material also learns with you. If you are reading a certain topic every day, it prioritizes that topic higher in your feed.

“With the avalanche of content out there, we’re focused on finding new and exciting ways for people to get directly to the things they love”, Inq Mobile CEO Ken Johnstone said in a statement. “Material was the result of this thinking, an app that takes all the hard work out of finding great stuff.”

Outside of smart curation of stories, the apps’s biggest asset is its colorful and smart design. Stories are shown in rectangles and often show big pictures that help you understand what stories you’re checking out.

Check out a few more screenshots of the app below.