Pulse is a New gatherer, reader app that has grown very popular on the iPad side of the Apple touch screen product line. Now, there is a Pulse News ‘Mini’ for the iPhone and Touch users.
It is all in the name… Pulse ‘Mini’ is just a small screen version of the full size Pulse on the iPad. Different names mean you pay per version if you have a iPhone and a iPad rather than it being a Universal app.
Pulse does a nice job of pulling down news that your interested in to be read online or offline later. What sets it aside is it’s ability to marry the news feed headlines with a small image so you can sweep through the news to find what your interested in. Most other readers either give you a long list of headlines or images and no text so it’s a hunt and peck to find what you want to read without opening all the posts that could be passed over.
All the controls are where you would expect them to be and very much self explanatory. No mystery buttons. The only one they didn’t highlight here is the refresh button in the upper right but you know that since the button is as it should be.
Pulse comes set up with a handful of New Feeds already running. Via the Settings area you can re-order the list or remove items that don’t match your interests.
Via the buttons along the bottom of the screen, you can choose news feeds from a long list of ones already loaded, search for new ones or pull in items you have in your Google Reader.
When you have your chosen list of important news feeds, returning to the main screen gives you a view of news in images and headlines. Sweep up/down to work through the many feeds you may have and left/right to move through the news of each feed (just the news feed your sweeping with your finger moves rather than all of the feeds so you can keep you place in one while moving through another).
Tap on a headline or image to bring up the article. Links are still active and open when tapped.
To wrap up with Pulse Mini – a big feature for me is the ability to share with others great articles I find. This can be done via email, Facebook and Twitter. And, if your concerned about the article going away from Pulse on the next update or data refresh, just send it to your Instapaper account.