Pulse News Reader (Alphonso Labs Inc. FREE) iPad
Pulse is now free, but does that make it worth getting?? With this app it does! Not all free apps are necessarily worth it. As a matter of fact, I’d rather pay for the app than deal with the headache of a non-function app. I get apps for a reason, and when i need a good news reader, i want one that works. Is that the case with Pulse News Reader? For me the experience was quite positive so, I’d say yes that this app is definitely worth a try to see if it fits your style. There are definitely pros and cons to this RSS reader over others, and while none of them are perfect, this app does go a long way toward giving you a great user experience. Although I must say, I likely never would have tried it if it hadn’t been offered for free. When I was looking for the right app, I saw many and went through a process to choose the correct app, but for some reason, this app just didn’t do it for me. I don’t remember why, but I will say that now that I have tried it, I am much more likely to recommend it. Its position at the top of the top 25 chart in the app store certainly speaks for itself!
The application starts out with a number of feeds already setup and ready to use. This is just to get you going and of course you can delete or keep any of them. From there you can add all of your own feeds, including linking to your Google Reader account to import the feeds you’ve already been using. Once they are all imported, the articles show up in the form of a grid with each row being a separate feed. Simply click on any article to view it in more detail or to view the web page of that article. You can also “Favorite” (or save for later) articles using a free Pulse account that you can setup right through the app, or you can publish the articles directly to Facebook and Twitter.
PROS:
- Easy to use, easy to navigate around all of your feeds and quickly browse through all the available articles and then drilling in on the specific articles that you’d like to read more.
- Importing feeds was very easy. The organization (by page) was very intuitive and certainly self explanatory. I was able to see right away how to add feeds and then organize them in the location/page/order that I’d like to see them.
- Save articles for later or Favorite the article using Pulse’s online service
- Publish easily to Facebook or Twitter. This went about as easy as one could expect.
- The app is free and very comparable to other apps (in features) such as River of News and The Early Edition.
CONS:
- The app doesn’t do two way syncing with Google Reader. So if you use Google Reader at any other time, you will see duplicates. What I mean by this is once you import the feeds into the app, reading them in Pulse News Reader does *NOT* mark them as read in Google Reader. If you use the app in the morning getting caught up on news, and then in the after noon you sit down at your computer and navigate over to Google Reader, you will then see all the articles you’ve already read, sitting there marked as unread.
- Importing from Google Reader was a little more than a chore given that I had to add each individual feed, one at a time. Yes I was able to import them all, but I have a lot of feeds in my Google Reader account and there was no import all feature (that I found).
- The over all appearance of landing on a page and having a large number of articles staring back at me, could seem a bit daunting. This may be a little too much, perhaps making each box a little bit bigger and therefore having less information on one page. Perhaps others like this. But this is one of the things I like about The Early Edition.
- There is no link to using my own Bit.ly account in the app. I love being able to use that so that I can go back and check stats later on articles I post. Unfortunately this app leaves that feature out.
All in all using this app is a very positive experience. I enjoyed using the app and found it very convenient and easy to use. And with a price tag of FREE it sure makes it even easier to like. This app was featured by Steve Jobs during one of his keynote addresses. It does a great job of taking advantage of the large screen provided by the iPad. I am able to view articles (and their corresponding web pages) while still able to view the other articles and scroll through them. The application is well done, looks beautiful and is designed professionally. Now all this being said, I still really like The Early Edition and rate that app higher. So if you are in the market for an RSS reader and are willing to pay a little bit, you might as well check it out!
Have you tried this app yet? If so, what do you think about it?
