Liz Gannes

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Pinterest Nudges Users Off the Couch and Into the World With New Android and iPad Apps

Pinterest co-founders Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharp today debuted Pinterest apps for Android and iPad, from a party at the company’s new San Francisco headquarters.

A “succulent cupcake” at the Pinterest party.

Mobile is particularly important to Pinterest, because the company is about interacting in the world, not sitting at a computer, Silbermann said.

“Our goal has never been to get you in front of the computer transfixed for hours and hours on end, it’s to get you offline,” he explained.

These products are nothing unexpected; they were top of the list of natural areas for Pinterest to expand.

Pinterest’s lack of Android app was such a frequent piece of user feedback that it had become a joke at the company, said Silbermann. How long after any new feature — like attributions or translations — was posted online would someone comment asking “Where’s the Android app?”

Pinterest co-founder Ben Silbermann shows off his company’s new apps.

Sharp noted the Android app was built from the ground up for Android, not as a simple port from iPhone. Just like many of the products its users pin, Pinterest the company loves to handcraft its own projects.

The new Pinterest for iPad includes a Pinterest-specific browser built into the app, including a new button that pops up a display of everything people have pinned from that Web site.

Also out tonight: a re-architected and redesigned version of Pinterest’s year-old iPhone app.

The Pinterest party also included a cornucopia of crafts and artsy foods (see the “succulent cupcake” above), including a station for putting together Mason jar terrariums.

Silbermann deadpanned, “For those of you who use Pinterest, you know the only thing cooler than making a terrarium could be a terrarium inside a Mason jar.”

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There’s a lot of attention and PR around Marissa, but their product lineup just kind of blows.

— Om Malik on Bloomberg TV, talking about Yahoo, the September issue of Vogue Magazine, and our overdependence on Google