Pulse News

by Alphonso Labs Inc.

Product Details

• ASIN: B004I3VWOI
• Original Release Date: July 25, 2010
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 17, 2011
Rated: Guidance Suggested This app may include dynamic content. What's this?

All Ages

Based on information provided by the developer, the content of this application is appropriate for all users and contains no objectionable content or advertisements.




Guidance Suggested

Based on information provided by the developer, the content of this application is appropriate for most users. The app may include account creation, location detection, user generated content, advertisements, infrequent or mild references to violence, profanity, or crude themes, or other content not suitable for all ages.







Mature

Based on information provided by the developer, the content of this application is only appropriate for mature users. The app may include account creation, location detection, user generated content, advertisements, explicit references to or images of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, graphic violence, profanity, or crude humor, mild sexual and suggestive themes, nudity within medical, informational, or artistic contexts, simulated gambling, or other content only suitable for mature audiences.







Adult

Based on information provided by the developer, the content of this application is only appropriate for adults. The app may include account creation, location detection, user generated content, advertisements, explicit references to or images of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, graphic violence, profanity, or crude humor, sexual and suggestive themes, nudity, simulated gambling, or other content only suitable for adult audiences.



This application contains content that is downloading real-time, based on inputs from the user or developer. The maturity rating associated with this application pertains only to the static elements of the application and does not cover any dynamic information (e.g. websites, friend postings, tweets). Dynamic content is defined as any content that may change within the application. Content can include animations, video or audio.
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (188 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,845 Free in Appstore for Android (See Top 100 Free in Appstore for Android)
  • #19 in Appstore for Android > News & Magazines > News

Product Features

• Navigate through the dashboard layout for easy reading
• Take advantage of offline support and view your articles without wasting battery life
• Share a news story on Pulse using e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and more
• Find new publishers every Friday and search for a specific source by keyword
• Add up to 60 total news sources on 5 different news pages

Technical Details

• Size: 8.7MB
• Version: 3.1.4
• Developed By: Alphonso Labs Inc.
• Application Permissions: (Help me understand what permissions mean)
  • Get notified that the operating system has finished booting
  • Open network sockets
  • Write to external storage
  • Read the sync settings
  • Access coarse (e.g., Cell-ID, Wi-Fi) location
  • Access information about networks
  • PowerManager WakeLocks to keep processor from sleeping or screen from dimming
  • com.google.android.c2dm.permission.RECEIVE
• Minimum Operating System: Android 2.2
• Approximate Download Time: Less than 90 seconds

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 54 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Runs perpetually October 3, 2011

By DuBois

Amazon Verified Purchase

CONS:

(1) I have a low-end smartphone with limited memory, so I want that memory dedicated to the apps that I am actively using. Having multiple apps running in the background increases my risk of running out of memory and being put in a forced close situation. Once you start "pulse", it runs perpetually in the background updating your feeds. But I don't want this. What I want is for the app to update my feeds when I start it, and then when I'm done reading my feeds, I want to be able to really quit the app.

(2) You can't customize the font size of the articles - an important feature for those of us in the bifocal set. I can understand that the font has to be a set size in the overview of all the articles in a folder, but when I select an article so I'm just reading that one, I can't see any reason for not letting me set the font size.

(3) Similar to the FlipBook on the iPad, it seems that there is no personal record of which articles I've already read. It always shows the most recent articles. If you are way behind in a feed, you can't access your older, unread items. On the other hand if you'd like to mark even more recent articles "read" so they'll disappear from your reader, this isn't the best choice of apps.

PROS:

The actual user interface is attractive and intuitive, at least after you have your feeds set up. I suspect it is even more slick to use on a tablet than on a phone which is where I'm using it.

ALTERNATE RSS READER

I ended up going with "Feedly" because it does allow the user to really quit the app, customize the font size, and mark articles as "read". I don't think it is as pretty as "pulse", but this functionality is more important to me than prettiness.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great way to get the news March 22, 2011

By Jayden Nielsen

Its a really pretty app. All of my RSS feeds are in one, clean space that I can quickly check on the go. it does download pictures though, so set your refresh rate accordingly with your data plan.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for Android tablets April 9, 2011

By Carlos R. Solis

This is one of my favorites for my Android Tablet. Great integration with other sharing apps, and very good interface