What's a five-letter word for "must-have iPad app for those who love watching online video"?
The answer is Vodio, a simple-to-use yet powerful aggregator of personalized video content.
When you first launch Vodio, you'll see a carousel of video content that you can flick left and right with your fingertip. Each column contains videos based on a particular theme, such as music, comedy, news, tech, and so on.
Flicking up and down on the column shows you more videos under that same topic. When you see a thumbnail and brief description of something to watch, just click it, and the video window expands full screen.
Don't care for sports or science? You can take out this column of video content altogether. Love movie news, trailers, reviews and behind-the-scenes interviews with celebrities? While there isn't a video column based on movies by default, you can easily add one by tapping through the settings menu.
It's this high level of customizability and simple user-interface that makes Vodio a very appealing app for tablet owners.
In fact, not only can you choose a particular theme to be added to the carousel, but you can also select where the content comes from.
For example, tech fans can select specific video feeds from CNet, Engadget, GigaOm, Mashable, TechCrunch, Twit.TV, Wired and so on.
Vodio also has its own tech sub-channels, such as Apps, Apple News, Gadgets and Mobile, to name a few.
For each video you watch, you can tap a Pandora Radio-like "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" icon, and the app will constantly adapt to your personal tastes in video content. If you see something you want to share, send the link via e-mail or tap to tell your friends about it on Facebook or Twitter.
While watching a video full-screen, you can even touch a small tab on the right-hand side to pull up video thumbnails from the same channel, if you want to browse what to watch next.
The only complaint about Vodio is there isn't a way to flag a video as a "favourite," to watch these preferred videos later on. At least, I wasn't able to find a way to do this.
Minor shortcoming aside, Vodio is an extraordinary iPad app that should provide many hours of free, customized video content.
Looking for more addictive apps? Try this one!
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