Most of us are depending more and more on mobile phones or tablets to keep us in the know. When I am not reading an archaic paper and ink tome of fantasy or science fiction (I need a kindle or tablet, I know... I know... geek status on probation) I am checking my Twitter, RSS feeds, Podcasts, Facebook or email. The challenge of course is in managing all of this information in a convenient way and helping to reduce clutter on my phones home screens.
I am going to take a look at three different applications (I am reviewing Android versions but there are iPhone and iPad versions available) which help to organize the various news and social media feeds into a more manageable and enjoyable experience. These apps are all available on the Android Market and iTunes and best of all they are all FREE. At the time of this writing none of them offer a paid or premium version, but all three are feature rich enough that few users would be looking for much more.
Taptu - Taptu has the highest visibility, has been around the longest and seems to have the most positive feedback, so I decided to start here. Taptu uses some creative ideas to describe it’s experience which make the experience unique without being convoluted or silly. Controlling or managing your streams makes you a ‘DJ’ as you can then share your ‘mix’ of streams on social media such as Twitter or Facebook. Taptu refers to its streams manager as the ‘StreamStore’. The Featured streams are presented in a grid format of images and logos that feels like a storefront.
As soon as I started the app I was provided a few tutorial and tip screens which quickly walked me through basic use of the application and adding new streams. Ending the tutorial took me straight away into the heart of the app where a few popular streams were already present for me. Using the search for streams button I entered the StreamStore. Here streams are listed under one of three tabs in either a grid or list format and allow you to add the streams to your Taptu mix.
The first tab is the Featured Streams tab and contains the most popular rss feeds and streams available from the New York Times to the NFL. The second tab is standard Topics/Categories tab where you can can browse categories such as entertainment, Social Media or even Guest DJ’s. The third tab is Google Reader integration. I logged in with my Google credentials and my streams came up. I then was able to choose which of my reader streams I wanted to add.
The top of the screen also offers a search feature for streams not listed in favorites or topics. This was my main complaint about the app. I could not find any easy way to add a custom stream such as http://feeds.feedburner.com/LiveGeekOrDie without adding it to my google reader account externally.
Twitter integration seems to be well done. In some cases easier and more friendly than Tweetcaster which I have used for well over a year. Your feeds look and feel just like the other news stories. It is one or two taps to post a new Tweet or retweet or quote an existing tweet. I really appreciate when opening a tweet that contains a link, the linked story loads below the tweet almost instantly, saving the hassle of opening the browser unless you explicitly choose to.
Facebook integration is equally robust. Feeds are again available in the same scrollable format with a simple tap to open the full post. Comments can be easily added or viewed with one touch of the Comments button. As with Twitter, once viewing the full screen posts, you can still scroll left and right to view newer or older items.
Overall I am thrilled with Taptu. It was easy to understand, and easy to learn. It has just enough features to not feel sparse while not offering so many features that a new user is overwhelmed and turned off. My only complaint so far has been the difficulty of adding non standard RSS feeds.
Pulse - Pulse has a very similar layout to Taptu and is probably the second most popular of the integrated readers. As with Taptu, Pulse offers some default feeds to get you started, but is easily customizable.
Clicking the Gear icon in the upper right of the screen takes you to the stream manager where you can add or remove streams, or you can scroll to the bottom of page with less than 12 feeds and simply tap the “+”. The Pulse feeds are grouped under tabs as with Taptu. The tabs include: Featured streams of the most popular feeds, Browse to navigate a list of categories where you can drill down through lists of topics to find your favorite feeds, Search to manually look for feeds that were not listed under the previous tabs and of course Google Reader integration. I was able to easily search for and locate Live Geek or Die’s news feed. Points scored.
Pulse offers a quick connection with your Facebook account to create an online profile where you can save your Pulse feeds for easy access from any PC as well as your mobile device. This also allows for easy integration with Instapaper, Evernote and Read It Later. It was not immediately clear how to access these additional services and I probably spent about 5 minutes closing and opening the stories as well as creating an unnecessary account with Pulse.me while trying to figure it out. You will of course need accounts with Instapaper and Read it Later and will need the Evernote App for your phone to access that feature.
The news feeds are limited to 12 feeds per page which can be limiting to many users who follow a lot of news sites. Pulse allows for multiple pages but you can’t easily swipe left or right to access them as that motion is reserved for scrolling through your news stories. Instead you have to choose the page from the top of the screen or scroll to the bottom of the list and tap the arrows.
I could not find a way to add my Twitter account to my Pulse feeds which was disappointing and the Facebook integration also left a lot to be desired. It breaks Facebook into Links, My Wall, and Posts from your friends. Links seems to be repeating some posts so I removed that, especially with the 12 stream per page limit. It was however very easy to post, like or reply within the app.
Pulse did not quite rise to the bar set by Taptu but overall it offers many of the same features. The lack of easy (or possibly any) Twitter integration was a real let down. Otherwise this is certainly a fine replacement for Taptu or to simply replace a few standalone apps on your phone. The Instapaper integration is also great if you browse articles on the go and like to read them at your desk or at home later where it’s quiet.
FLUD - FLUD rounds out my three app review with a different layout and approach to the display of its news stories. Rather than offering the horizontal scrolling grid format of Pulse and Taptu, FLUD displays its stories in a 2 column grid layout with vertical scrolling. The layout is different and works to a point, but only shows up to 11-12 of the most current stories with no obvious method for going back farther into archives.
A wrench icon in the upper right of the screen serves as our gateway to stream management for FLUD. The first tab offers a search window, Featured Weekly Best, Twitter Mentions and Timeline and finally the standard Categories below that. The categories seemed somwhat lacking but this may be due to FLUD being new.
The second tab is My News, where you can remove feeds you no longer need or want, with one exception: The FLUD. This is the apps default homepage and cannot be removed. It can however be dragged to the bottom of the list to effectively be hidden. If I can do that, then just let me remove it. I’m anal and I don’t like the clutter.
The third tab is your Google Reader integration and once logged in, functions as expected. Finally a fourth tab allows you to share your FLUD feeds on Facebook or Twitter or rate the FLUD app in the market. You can also unfollow @FLUDapp here if you so desire.
FLUD offers Twitter integration but it falls short of what Taptu has to offer. It hits the limited archive wall very quickly if you follow a lot of active tweeters. This makes it very hard to like if you don’t check it frequently as you will miss tweets during a busy time. It is easy to retweet with one tap but there doesn’t seem to be much else offered as supported features.
Despite offering Twitter, FLUD does not offer any obvious direct Facebook feed support.
My final impressions of FLUD are mixed. The different layout is interesting but it doesn’t add anything that makes it a better format. If it allowed deeper scrolling it could easily overcome the 11 or 12 story viewable limit which seems to be the apps biggest drawback. The lack of Facebook integration is disappointing and it seems that Taptu is the clear leader in being a one stop shop.
Final thoughts - Taptu absolutely met my expectations better than either of the other apps and despite its one main flaw, which is easily circumvented, I had almost zero complaints. Both Pulse and FLUD were missing one major point of integration and both rendered more slowly to screen than Taptu. I am by no means saying to skip them completely as they are easy enough to setup and try. I had all three of them for about a week and put them through their paces with few hiccups. I did have two crashes in FLUD and Pulse. Pulse also had some issues with refreshing my Facebook streams. The apps are all free and you might find you prefer the feel of one that I didn’t care for. Whatever your choice, it’s great to see more integration to lower my phones app count and to avoid having to jump apps to serve all of my social media needs.
