Pulse iPad App Returns to the App Store | Hacker News Reader

Pulse iPad App Returns to the App Store

digitaldaily.allthingsd.com

58 pointsssclafani19 comments

> The Terms of Use on our RSS feeds makes it clear that the RSS feeds are available for non-commercial use only. By charging for an app ($3.99) that gives users access to our RSS feeds, they are violating that provision of the Terms of Use.

How amazingly stupid and unenforceable.

Don't you have to buy an iPhone first to view their RSS feeds through Pulse?

Doesn't that also violate their Terms of Use?

Presumably the problem they have is with the RSS feed being preloaded in the app and used to market it, not the fact that commercial products can consume the feed.

Pulse is doing what New York times should be doing. Making an aggregator of all news both from themselves and other newspapers and sources and instead fight over who has the best newsreader.

This is so obvious and yet pride and politics completely cloud their minds.

I want to read news, the best news by the best sources. I am willing to both pay for that and would even accept advertising. I don't care who it's from, it doesn't matter. Just serve me adds but at least give me one entrance point instead of twenty.

It's incredible that newspapers don't see the opportunity.

They don't, believe me my company have tried to convince a couple of them.

If this is where it stops, that's a pretty solid marketing boost for Pulse!

It would be nice if Apple put the app back because they decided the Times' complaint was baseless. If Apple is willing to stick up for developers that do abide by the terms of service and contribute to the iOS ecosystem, that would serve to mitigate the heavy-handedness we've seen from them so far.

Nope. Apple put the app back because of the bad press they are getting. I am sure if this wasn't all over the Internet pulse would have been back.

That doesn't make sense at all. What about the countless other apps that have been taken down? They got tons of bad press over Google Voice and where's that at? Right, relegated to a webapp.

If I had to guess, I'd say that they almost automatically take things down if they get a takedown request, which is unfortunately the policy of many hosting companies like YouTube, etc. After they reviewed the problem, they probably saw how absurd it was (especially considering they like the app themselves and featured it at WWDC) and put the app back up.

This really sounds like the NYT shooting itself in the foot to make a point, and I'm not even sure what point they're trying to make. How does an app that makes it more likely for people to view the NYT website do anything but help the NYT?

I would imagine the conversation inside NYT HQ went along the following lines:

"The iPad is our saviour! It's the platform we've been looking for to regain our foothold in dictating the form factor and payment structure for our content."

"Someone is stealing our content on the platform :( Does anyone have Apple's number? They seems to be down with the whole 'form factor and payment structure ownership' thingy"

More comments regarding same: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1414235

No word on their site, just a tweet from @pulsepad that indicates that they are back with a link to the App Store.

I'm glad it's back - I didn't get to grab it this morning and just got it.

I feel like it's a beautifully designed app but the limitation of 20 sources only is annoying, and I'm not sure the $4 is well spent anymore.

I'd spend $4 just for the possibility of old-media learning something.

beautifully designed? really?

The item titles lack padding so it all looks a bit clumsy.

The gray in the top bar is way too light compared to the source-bars. The source titles are stripped off so I can't see the full title of my source altho it's only 20 characters.

and when you click on an item the 'option' bar in the bottom right corner you get with aA, share options etc. looks cramped in the little tab as well.

No, definitely -not- well designed imho.

I immediately embraced the 20 sources. I can't honestly pay attention to any more than that. This keeps me focused - I have to choose what feeds I'm going to watch. I looked at my google reader feed and honestly I had over 100 feeds in there but I really only ever read about 10 or so. I've found that for me, information overload causes productivity paralysis. So I like the limitation of 20.

Or, individual users can limit how many sources they have, and not make it difficult for users who like more feeds to use more.

I'd like to think that we and others like us had something to do with pressuring Apple to add pulse back to the app store.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com