LinkedIn Rolls Out Redesigned iOS, Android Apps
Have you ever thought what it would be like to harness the connectivity of social networks like Facebook and put a more professional spin to it? Well, LinkedIn was born from that idea and, despite all odds, continues to exist to this day. The experience it offers, however, hasn't been a smooth ride. Especially on mobile, where you'd be buried under tons of menus and information overload. Now the new mobile app, nicknamed "Voyager", is neater, leaner, and more streamlined, giving way for LinkedIn's other mobile apps to come into the picture.
LinkedIn's entire mobile experience has now been condensed into five tabs. The Home tab is your landing page when you open the app. But if you're expecting it would simply summarize the rest of the four tabs, you'd be surprised. This page is actually going to be filled with news and updates that are of interest to you, at least based on your industry, interests, skills, and even conversations. The Me tab is, of course, all about you. Not just your profile though, but also about who has viewed your profile, commented on your post or shared them.
The meat of LinkedIn can perhaps be found in the next two tabs. My Network is where the social aspect of the service comes in, linking you with your professional network as well as integrating with your calendar to make sure you don't miss meetings. You might even be able to take a peek at the other person's profile before meeting him or her. Messages is where online conversations happen. Yes, it's a professional social network, but Messages is actually presented as more informal chats, almost like Facebook Messenger.
One important aspect of the new LinkedIn app is actually what's not found in the app. The redesigned mobile app is actually the company's way of pushing its new multi-app strategy. Instead of integrating and locating everything inside one app, the main app would just quickly launch LinkedIn's other mobile apps, like Pulse or Job Search. This allows the main app to remain lightweight and at the same time introduces LinkedIn's other properties.
The rollout of the new LinkedIn app, available on both iOS and Android, shows how the company is striving to understand the mobile generation and how they expect their apps to behave. But perhaps the bigger question on people's minds is whether a LinkedIn app would matter at all even for professionals, unless they happen to be in the recruitment business.
SOURCE: LinkedIn