Pulse News Launches 2.0 Update for Android and iPhone

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Popular visual news app, Pulse, released a major update for Android and iPhone today. Pulse 2.0 combines enhanced performance, new content sources and improved sharing with social feeds and news discovery features. The app is available now as a free download in the Android Market and Apple’s App Store.

“Pulse on mobile phones was built around this idea and has really resonated with our users. Pulse 2.0 delivers the same visually-compelling experience that our users love with new features that improve browsing and make it easier to find and share news on the go.”

Pulse 2.0 was developed to address the changing needs of consumers, who increasingly want an efficient way to access, discover and share essential news and information on the go. Pulse’s graphical interface is specifically designed for viewing news content on mobile phones, enabling users to see numerous news stories from various sources at once. Pulse 2.0 builds on the existing app to deliver an experience that is faster, more comprehensive, and more social than ever before. New features for Pulse 2.0 for iPhone and Android include:

Three times more sources
Pulse users can now personalize their mobile news reading experience by selecting up to 60 news sources across five customizable pages (compared to the previously available 20). Pulse’s innovative design is optimized for organizing and viewing all these sources on a smart phone’s smaller screen, and moving sources between pages is as easy as drag and drop.

Three times the speed
Improved performance means sources update and images load faster, and scrolling is smoother and more fluid.

Social feeds
Social content from Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, Digg, Reddit and Hacker News (Y Combinator’s social news feed) is now available on every platform. Users can also like, share and comment on Facebook content from within the Pulse app.

News Discovery Features
With only a few taps, users can select a “Pulse pack” to auto-populate an entire page with the top sources for politics, finance, sports, or whatever else interests them. Additionally, every Friday, Pulse spotlights new and interesting publishers in its “Featured Sources” section.

Improved Sharing tools
Pulse 2.0 integrates Facebook, Twitter, and email sharing contextually within each story, which means that sharing news with your friends is just a tap away.

“What we’ve been seeing is a trend towards bite-sized consumption, meaning users increasingly prefer to consume news in short bursts, while standing in line for coffee or waiting for a train,” said Akshay Kothari, co-founder. “Pulse on mobile phones was built around this idea and has really resonated with our users. Pulse 2.0 delivers the same visually-compelling experience that our users love with new features that improve browsing and make it easier to find and share news on the go.”

Originally introduced for the iPad, Pulse has seen dramatic growth in mobile phones since launching on iPhone and Android in August last year, with phone users now accounting for nearly 70 percent of Pulse’s total installs. Pulse 2.0 reflects this shift in mobile phone usage by providing users with an efficient, customizable news reading experience specifically tailored for today’s most popular smart phone platforms.

About Pulse

Pulse was created in May 2010 by Ankit Gupta and Akshay Kothari, two Stanford graduate students as part of a course at the Institute of Design. The inspiration for Pulse was borne out of their frustration with the news reading experience on mobile devices. To solve this problem, they developed the first version of Pulse on iPad in 6 weeks. Pulse combines RSS feeds, partner content, social feeds and news discovery features to provide an unparalleled news reading experience on tablets and mobile phones. Pulse has been selected as one of just 50 apps in Apple’s App Store Hall of Fame and named one of TIME’s top 50 iPhone apps of 2011. Pulse is available as a free download for iPad, iPhone, and Android.