You don’t want to be one of those people who comments on articles posted on Facebook without actually reading the articles, right?
Well, to be honest, it’s easy to understand why it happens. Tapping on a link in the Facebook for Android app means watching Facebook slide into the background, and then waiting patiently (or not) while your browser laboriously loads the articled you tapped on.
OK, so the process may only take about five to 10 seconds, but hey—that’s five or 10 seconds that could’ve been spent on Facebook, right?
Tap a link in an app like Facebook, and Link Bubble will start loading the page (or pages) in a spinning bubble on the side of the screen.
Enter Link Bubble, a clever Android app that takes some of the pain out of tapping those gotta-tap links you’ll find in social apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
Here’s how it works: Once installed (the process only took a few seconds on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus), Link Bubble waits quietly in the background while you flick through, say, your Facebook news feed.
Now, see a link you want to tap? Tap it—and instead of being yanked from Facebook so your Android browser can load the page, Link Bubble will start loading the web link in a spinning bubble on the side of the screen.
While Link Bubble is loading a web page, you can keep doing whatever you’re doing—meaning, for example, you can keep scrolling down your Facebook feed, or swiping through Pinterest pins.
One a page has finished loading, Link Bubble can open it right on top of whatever you’re doing, no app switching required.
You can even tap additional links, which Link Bubble will dutifully begin to load. If Link Bubble is loading, say, two pages at once, a little “2” will appear on the edge of the spinning bubble.
Once the bubble(s) stops spinning, just tap it to open the page right on top of whatever you’re doing, no app switching required.
You can also tap, hold, and swipe the bubble down to close any opened links, or swipe it to the side for sharing and saving options.
Nice, but there’s a catch: Link Bubble costs a cool $5, or at least so does the unlimited “pro” version. A free trial lets you load a single page at a time within one app.
Download: Link Bubble
Note: I paid for a copy of Link Bubble to review; the makers of the app haven’t compensated me in any way.