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Pulse News Reader now in convenient smaller size for iPhone, iPod touch


The Pulse News Reader for iPad (US$3.99) gained some notoriety last month when the stylish app was released, then promptly yanked from the App Store by Apple at the behest of The New York Times. The Times did not want their RSS feed featured in Pulse; changes were made and the app has been back in the App Store since about June 8th.

Now comes word from developer Alphonso Labs that a new version of the app -- Pulse News Mini ($2.99) -- is now available for iPhone and iPod touch. It's iOS 4.0 tested, and from a quick look at the app, it does an amazing job of putting the functionality of Pulse into a smaller form factor.

As you can see from the video above, Pulse News Mini looks quite similar to the iPad app. Of course, the individual pieces of the Pulse "mosaic" are smaller, but the way that users interact with Pulse is identical. Up to 20 news feeds may be added, with the ability to search by keywords to find those feeds. A tap on a story expands it to fill the screen. The rest of the stories in the feed are listed below, but can be hidden with a touch.

I was pleased to see that Alphonso Labs took one of my suggestions to heart. As a writer, I like to see who is writing posts for various blogs. The initial versions of Pulse did not have this feature, but Pulse News Mini shows the author byline in the feed.

In the currently shipping version of Pulse, 1.0.1, photos associated with posts did not appear to load properly. I'd love to see some way to sync the feeds on the iPad and iPhone versions to avoid re-entry of feeds between devices. If the developer responds as quickly to this request as they did to the my previous suggestion, we should see that feature implemented quickly.




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The Pulse News Reader for iPad (US$3.99) gained some notoriety last month when the stylish app was released, then promptly yanked from...
 

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danielkbx

“News Wall” (http://danielkbx.com/newswall) uses a similar UI but does not have a feed limit. It runs both on iPad & iPhone, the free version only supports iPhone.
It is not yet released, however, the review team already has it.

July 05 2010 at 4:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Richard

I've asked for help from the pulse guys,

On my iPhone 3GS 3.1.3 the thumbnails don't show.. No mosaic ..

Anyone else having this issue?

July 03 2010 at 8:18 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
dvddesign

Well, I guess it's nice that I got to buy it on the iPhone first. I would've enjoyed this application less on the iPad.

They're claiming a benefit is that you can read your headlines over a cup of coffee. I was willing to put up with the limitation of 20 feeds, but the fact that I can't sort my articles by date or have the ones I've read pulled out of the main listings makes my feeds look like a cluttered mess of hard to tell which ones I've read and not read. The interface navigates well and the rendering is done well... It's just that sorting through all of this with the assumption is that this is how I supposedly want my news given to me is just not appealing.

Sure, if you're the guy who just wants the latest and greatest for 10-20 minutes at a time, this is an app for you.

Personally, I want whatever I haven't read, in total, put up for me to read at my leisure, starting with the oldest first... Feeddler is doing that just fine on my iPhone, when my iPad arrives, I'll be trying out Reeder obviously since it's been given glowing reviews, but I'm already cautious of this approach of someone else telling me how to digest my news.

July 02 2010 at 8:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mr. O

Reeder's beautiful - but Byline has been killing it (offline caching is huge for me).

I just hope fullscreen browsing is on the way at some point.

July 02 2010 at 4:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
KBeat

I love this app on the iPad, and was hoping they'd bring it over to the iPhone. Thanks for the heads up TUAW.

Look, if you're a big users of Google Reader, or the type that subscribes to hundreds of RSS feeds, than this app isn't for you. You'll likely hate it and won't "get" it's popularity.

However, for those of use with 10-20 favorite feeds we like to check regularly, Pulse is fantastic. It's got a gorgeous UI that's fast and simple to navigate, with great use of photos. It supports Twitter and Instapaper as well, making it a good starting point for the morning news. The only real knock I have against the app is that as of yet it doesn't support inline video.

So, if you have massive collection of feeds, understand this app isn't designed for you. Do try to understand it's appeal to those with different needs.

July 02 2010 at 3:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sohrob

Hello, does anyone know if Pulse News Mini supports the iPhone 4's Retina Display?

July 02 2010 at 2:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ijw

Pulse looked good until Early Edition came along

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-early-edition/id363496943?mt=8

Now Pulse is charging again for iPhone version and not making it universal? - please, give me a break!

July 02 2010 at 1:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ichigo Kurosaki

I'm using Reeder for both iPad and iPhone and I love them both. It also syncs with Google Reader so if I read it In Reeder it's marked as read on Google Reader. You can also mark as Star, share, and mark as unread! Has a very nice fluid interface too! Would recommend it to everyone!

July 02 2010 at 1:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Urby

For all the publicity that this app gets, I personally find it terrible. Not the eye-candy nor anything else works well for Google Reader. Reeder's where it's at!!

July 02 2010 at 1:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Urby's comment
Jason Kallelis

I second the "Reeder" love.

July 02 2010 at 1:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ichigo Kurosaki

LOL didn't see your comment! Yea Reeder is by far the best for Google Reader!

July 02 2010 at 1:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Michael

I already bought it for the iPad. Now I have to pay for it all over again for the iPhone?

July 02 2010 at 1:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Michael's comment
Doc Rock

I'm going to have to say phooey on this too. There are too many apps that are not universal that seem to be very easy to make it so.

I'm going to give my love back to reeder. This is just like flash on a website pretty for nothing. Kind of reminds me of push-up bras. whack.

July 02 2010 at 9:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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