This review is also featured at G Style Magazine which is a tech blog that focuses on the fashion aspect of tech. Please visit their site as well for more articles.

After weeks of putting it off, I finally purchased Alphonso Labs’ Pulse News Mini. I had read lots of reviews about it and even played with it a bit on an old iPhone 2G and decided to just go ahead and purchase it as I really needed a good RSS news reader. Pulse News Mini is an RSS news reader that is unlike a lot of the other bland, text-based news readers out there. Where other news readers are filled with nothing but text and headlines, Pulse News Mini takes the graphical approach and uses a series of image tiles and headlines to present you the most up-to-date posts from all your favorite blogs all on one screen. I’m a busy person in real life who has to juggle time between my family, work and my hobbies so sometimes its difficult for me to just sit in front of a computer and view all my favorite blogs. That’s where Pulse News Mini comes into play.

Pulse News Reader gives you all your sites at a glance, all at once. By inputting all the sites you visit on a daily basis, Pulse News Mini imports all the RSS information for you whenever you refresh the app. This lets you view all those sites at one time instead of visiting each site separately. This is a huge time saver for me as it is quite possible for me to visit a whole bunch of sites within a minute. Pulse News Mini displays both the header image and the title which makes it easy to browse for posts that you actually want to read. I’m the type who doesn’t read every post on a blog and usually only read what I find interesting. This makes it really easy to do that.

What makes Pulse News Reader a must have too is how fast it is. The app can update feeds in the background while you are reading other feeds. When on 3G or WiFi, it only takes a few seconds to update all your feeds. I’m currently viewing 15 feeds at once and it has no problems updating each one quickly. when you click on a post you want to read, it brings up the main article for you to read but also includes all the feeds at the bottom for that specific blog. It makes it easy to jump between articles once you are done reading the current one.

I was never a big RSS reader due to the fact that they were always all text based when browsing all the headlines. Sure you could view all the headlines quickly but I rarely ever clicked on any of the articles as it always seemed quite boring to me. I hated having to swim through all the posts. Now with Pulse New Mini though, I’m actually reading all my favorite sites when I’m away from a computer and I’m enjoying it. I also like the fact that I can link my Facebook and Twitter accounts and share articles with my friends easily and all through the Pulse News Mini app.

Final Thoughts

Pulse News Mini is a very excellent RSS news reader for your iPhone or iPod Touch. Unlike other readers that are all text based, Pulse presents articles to you in picture form so you can always quickly browse what might be interesting to read. The app is very fast on my iPhone 4 and scrolling is very smooth. I like the fact that I can browse articles and if I like the article or want to share the article, I can directly post them to either my Twitter or Facebook with a click of a button. Pulse also grabs articles fairly quickly over 3G too as I had no problems updating all the recent articles from 15 different RSS feeds in less than 30- seconds. What’s great is I can view multiple updates from different sources at once very quickly instead of me visiting each site individually. It is a huge time saver as I can browse everything within a matter of minutes. I highly recommend Pulse News Mini for anyone looking for a solid RSS news reader.

You can get Pulse News Mini now in the App Store for 99 cents.

Note: This app has been updated to 1.1 and a new addition to the review is below:

After writing the review for Pulse News Mini only yesterday, Alphonso Labs update the app today to v1.1. I thought I’d do a slightly updated review because this update actually adds quite a few new features to the already fantastic app. The main additions are the inclusion of fast flipping where you can now swipe between articles and the new landscape mode. This makes browsing even faster on an already speedy app. I dind’t think it was possible to make the app any faster than it was.

These new additions are accompanied by a new Pulse Bazaar which showcases new and interesting sources and Pulse is now able to be used in 6 different languages. Because of these new additions, I’ve upped the rating on Pulse News Mini to a solid A+ and love the fact that the developers are constantly updating and making Pulse News Mini even better.

You can buy Pulse News Mini in the App Store now for 99 cents. I highly recommend Pulse News Mini for anyone who reads a lot of blogs.

Rating: A+

Description

Featured in Apple’s “New and noteworthy” and “What’s Hot”. Complete Retina Display Support. Grab your copy NOW!

Pulse is a clean and visual news reader for your iPhone/iPod. It takes in upto 20 news sources that you follow, and creates a visual mosaic of your news. Tap on an article, and you’re presented with a cleanly rendered view of the news story. Also featured in…

“Alphonso Labs – the new king of Apps” – Fortune Magazine
“Pulse is a solid app, visually pleasing even on a smaller screen.” – TechCrunch
“Best news reader app ever” – The Next Web
“No iPad, no problem. The #1 News reading application, Pulse now available on iPhone” – NOTCOT
“Engaging ideas at Stanford University’s d.school” – Fast Company

Features:
★ Dashboard: With the dashboard layout, you can continue to browse stories as you read an article.

★ Smart search: No need for complicated RSS 2.0/XML/*#@ feed addresses. All you have to do is enter keywords or source name and we fetch the feed for you. You can add upto 20 sources in this version.

★ Offline sync: No internet? No problem. Pulse loads the news you read, and makes it available wherever you are.

★ Easy share: Found an interesting article? Sharing it via email, facebook, twitter and instapaper is as easy as 2 taps.

★ Stay up to date: Want to read the latest news as soon as its published? With a single tap, you can refresh all your sources instantly without ever leaving the application.

Feature request: Please do request features you’d like at http://www.getsatisfaction.com/pulsenews

What’s New in Version 1.0.2

★ Complete Retina Display Support: Much richer images on an iPhone 4 delivering amazing user experience!
★ Performance Magnified: Your favorite news reader is now faster and smoother!
★ Discover and Share Feeds: Bump your phone with a friend’s iPhone or iPad and discover what they are reading on Pulse.
★ Custom Source Names: Tap on the source to change its name.
★ Secure Twitter Login: Using OAuth

[via App Store]

This review is also featured at G Style Magazine which is a tech blog that focuses on the fashion aspect of tech. Please visit their site as well for more articles.