Born out of their frustration with news reading apps for mobile devices, Ankit Gupta and Akshay Kothari created Pulse in May 2010. Pulse is available for the iPhone, iPad, and Android. While all news readers depend on RSS feeds from news sources, Pulse took a different design approach.

Pulse organizes news sources into pages, with a maximum of twelve sources per page. The default setup provides one main page, and one blank page. However, you can add additional pages. Multiple pages provides a way to organize pages according to news topic, or any other organization that you desire. On each page, you can organize the news feeds into the order that you desire. The news feeds are arranged vertically on the page. Since you may have more news feeds than there is vertical space on your mobile device screen, you swipe up and down to view different news feeds. If you swipe down at the top of the page, Pulse refreshes all the news feeds on that page.

The topics for each news source appears as a row of icons, which you can slide to the left, or right. If you slide a news feed all the way to the right, then Pulse refreshes the news feed. Each icon contains the title, photo, and very brief snipped of the first line of the article. Pulse does not always select the correct photo, and feeds without photos lack visual appeal.

To read an article, you need to just tap the icon to get an article summary. In most cases, you will not see the full article. To see the full article, you need to tap “Go to original article.” This is OK for most articles, but the Pulse browser has problems playing YouTube videos. To view the the article in a Web browser, you need to tap the Menu icon, and then select “Open in browser.” Going to the original article, or opening the Web browser is slow, even with a Wi-Fi connection.

You can add a news feed by simply tapping one of the recommended news sources, or tapping the plus icon at the bottom of a page that has room for more news feeds. For complete management of news source, you need to select the Manage Sources from the Menu. Manage Sources allows you to add, delete, or rearrange news sources. To add a source, just click the plus button at the bottom of a partially filled page. Pulse has an enormous number of news feeds divided into different categories. The top panel allows you to swipe left or right to select a category, and the select a news source from the bottom panel. There are a lot more sources than the panel shows, so you need to swipe this panel up and down to see all the possibilities.

The Local panel is empty for Costa Rica. However, you can add local news feeds. Under the Social category, you will find Google Reader, Reddit, and Storify. For example, to add the Costa Rica Star, you would first need to follow it in Google Reader. You can add Costa Rica Star to Google Reader account from either your PC, or via the Google Reader app. You need to search for “Noticias de Costa Rica News” If you just search for Costa Rica Star, you will find the news feeds and every article. Once you are following it in Google Reader, you can select the Costa Rica Star as a news source, and follow it in Pulse. The same is true for all Costa Rica sites that have an RSS feed.

While the latest version of Pulse is much easier to use, it has problems. Pulse is a resource hog, especially if you have to many news feeds. Devices with limited internal storage are especially subject to cache limitations. You can control the amount of data stored from the Data Usage option under the Settings menu. The default is “High: Gimme Everything,” which may lead to hangs and forced closes on Android devices with limited resources. To avoid these problems, you can choose either “Medium: Standard” or “Low: Save My Data!.”

Announced in early December, 2011, Google Currents treats news feeds as periodicals, and is more like reading a magazine. When it first came out, the collections of publications offered was small compared to Pulse. After several updates, the list of publications has grown to rival that of Pulse. In addition, it offers publications in languages other than English. Besides the listed periodicals, you can add any RSS feed tracked by Google. To add the Costa Rica Star, just tap the + icon, tap Search, and then enter “Noticias de Costa Rica News.” Of the list of items returned, you just need to tap the “Add for free” button for the first entry whose URL is http://news.co.cr/feed/. You do not need to subscribe to the feed in Google Reader, to subscribe to it in Google Currents.

On a tablet, or smartphone with a larger screen, trending stories appear as a continuously sliding frame at the top of the app. These stories are selected from the periodicals to which you are subscribed. To read a periodical, you just tap its icon. The periodical then appears in magazine format. At the beginning, all the stories appear as icons. To read a story, you just tap its icon, which takes you to the full article. You move through the contents and the articles, just by swiping left or right. Playing YouTube videos is not a problem, and articles appear very quickly. You can rearrange the articles by long tapping on any periodical. A menu appears that allows you to manage the periodical.

Google Currents automatically formats to the screen size of the device. Thus, devices with a small screen have a different layout than devices with a large screen. Google Currents saves periodicals for off-line reading. You control how often Google Currents syncs with the news sources, and what is synced. You can also control the syncing of images, for off-line reading. Google Currents is available for iPhone, iPad, and Android. From a PC, you can go to Google Currents, select the device, and use the QR code to retrieve the app.

Both apps provide for sharing of a news article. Google Currents uses the Android share feature, which allows you to share it to any compatible app installed on your mobile device. Pulse only provides sharing to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. I have used Pulse for over a year, but the last update has so many problems, that I switched to Google Currents.