Taptu
by Jonathan Lonczak
May 10, 2011 4:18 PM –
Install
Taptu is a clever social news feed reader. Get the latest on your interests in one place.You can discover Topics and sources from our StreamStore or add any RSS feed from the web.
Features:
* Support for Android Tablets (Honeycomb)
* Discover streams on your favorite topics from a mix of sources in the StreamStore
* Add as many Facebook or Twitter accounts as you want, add your LinkedIn account as well.
* Bookmark articles to read later or save to Instapaper
* Widget for your home scree (support for multiple widgets)
* Search Bing for RSS feeds
* Import your favorite RSS feeds from Google Reader (up to 100) and convert them to Streams
* Fast, even on slow 2G (GPRS) networks
Price: Free
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Excellent news reader application allows you to view all of your news in one location!
- Extremely easy to set up and use!
- Comes pre-programmed with many popular news feeds!
- Allows you to add your own feeds without having to type in any pesky RSS!
- Allows you to customize Card Size, Article Size, and Color Scheme!
- Allows you to create your own packages of news feeds!
- Allows you to backup your settings to the SD Card!
- Supports social networking through Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn!
Cons
- Does not have multiple screens on which to save news.
Features:
Taptu is an excellent news reading application. Taptu allows you to view all of your favorite news streams through only one application. It allows you to pull news from any feed you wish, comes preloaded with some of the most popular news streams in the world, and has the ability to import your favorite news streams from Google Reader, including AndroidTapp which comes as a pre-installed feed with the Android app.
Taptu displays all of your feeds on the main screen in a small card like view. Each feed or stream is given it’s own row on the main screen of the application. Every news article is given it’s own card within the row which gives a brief synopsis of the article. This is very similar to the way that Pulse News Reader displays news articles. The main difference is that while Taptu may give up some of the beautiful visuals of Pulse News Reader it gives you a more powerful reader for your feeds as well as a less cluttered interface. Each of the cards and streams seem perfectly spaced with each other. This provides an excellent reading experience and an excellent feel to the interface.
In order to add a new news stream to Taptu you just click on the “Plus Sign” and a list of the most popular news streams will appear. These include The Drudge Report, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, MSNBC, Bloomberg, and Mashable as well as many more. You can also browse through news streams by topic, or import your existing news streams from Google Reader.
Taptu also allows you to add streams to your main screen of news that are not listed in it’s news feed database. In order to find a particular news stream you can just type the name of the feed into the search box and Taptu will search the internet with Bing in order to find the feed that you desire. I used this feature to add Android Tapp to my list of feeds and it worked like a charm.
Taptu also supports social feeds. These include Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn! I was very surprised that Taptu supported importing in the status updates from your LinkedIn profile. The social features worked splendidly, and kept me constantly up to date with my social and professional network.
Taptu also allows you to rearrange your news streams by clicking on the “Pencil Tool Tip.” This allows you to sort feeds based on their priority to you. This handy tool also allows you to merge feeds to create your own packages of news feeds. This feature is excellent because it allows you to cut down on some of the clutter on the main screen without sacrificing content. You can delete feeds through this menu as well.
Through the settings menu in Taptu you can change many options throughout the application. It allows you to set the size of the Articles and Cards on your main screen, change the theme for Taptu from light to dark, or adjust the scrolling of streams to the width of your phone. One of the best features that can be found in the settings of the application is the ability to save your news feeds to the SD Card of your phone or tablet. This allows you to have all of your favorite feeds information backed up permanently for your device. This prevents you from having to manually select all of your news streams over again if you are forced to do a hard reset on your phone.
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Taptu Main Screen 1
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Taptu Main Screen 2
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Taptu Article View
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Taptu Featured Streams
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Taptu Find A Stream
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Taptu Import Google Reader
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Taptu Manage Streams
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Taptu Main Screen Add Stream
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Taptu Feedback Options
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Taptu Menu Options
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Taptu Settings
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Taptu Share Options
Usefulness:
Taptu is an extremely useful application which allows you to view all of your feeds in one place. It is easy to set up and use, and is also very feature rich. The ability to back up your feeds makes this application stand out significantly versus other feed readers because it allows you to restore all of your settings in the case of a hard reset.
Taptu also allows you to add your own streams of news allowing the application to easily tailor itself to your individual needs. These streams are not only limited to news, but also include social networking through Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Ease of Use:
Taptu is extremely easy to use. It gives you a large amount of feeds to choose from within the basic application. It also allows you to easily add new news feeds, without having to look up the RSS Stream for yourself. Taptu has a very intuitive layout which contributes greatly to it’s ease of use.
Frequently Used:
Taptu is easily an application that can be used daily if not hourly. It allows you to view all of your news streams in one easy to access location. It allows you to add your own feeds, merge feeds together to create custom news syndicates, and also allows you to backup all of your settings so that you never have to worry about losing everything again.
Interface:
The interface of Taptu is excellent. It is very easy to use and feature rich. I love the way the application allows you to customize everything from your feeds, to the size of your articles and cards, down to your theme. It is easy to add new feeds to the application and Taptu comes preprogrammed with many excellent news feeds. I love the interface for this application.
One thing that I think that Taptu should add would be separate screens of news that can be customized according to the user’s wishes. I like how Pulse News Reader added this in their newest installation. It allows me to sort my World News from my Android News and Social Feeds, which keeps me more organized and my news screens less cluttered. If this were to be added in to Taptu in a later installation I think this would be an almost perfect application.