Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

The Pelican, a cool news app for iPad

R

ronenbasch

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 18, 2012
9
0

Attachments

  • ipadandcoffee.jpg
    ipadandcoffee.jpg
    648.4 KB · Views: 238
  • ps_main.jpg
    ps_main.jpg
    217 KB · Views: 138
  • ps_life_style.jpg
    ps_life_style.jpg
    362.1 KB · Views: 140
  • ps_article.jpg
    ps_article.jpg
    312.6 KB · Views: 126
  • photo-2.jpg
    photo-2.jpg
    887.1 KB · Views: 133
Yay :)
If you have any more feedback I'd love to hear it. We are working on a new version with a better article page - once it will be ready I'll post it here.

In the meantime, you can stay up to date through our facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/thepelicanapp
 
Last edited:
cpnotebook80 said:
great app.

I noticed on the new ipad, the top menu and logo is pixelated. I guess its not retina ready yet?
Click to expand...


You're right, It's not retina ready. The new resolution kind of caught us by surprise after the graphics were finished.
I hope we'll get to it in one of the next versions.
 
Thanks, I love these kind of apps.
I'll try it and letcha know (apart from the now obvious claim of making it Retina ready :D)
 
ronenbasch said:
You're right, It's not retina ready. The new resolution kind of caught us by surprise after the graphics were finished.
I hope we'll get to it in one of the next versions.
Click to expand...

Do wait too long...momentum is important...and it will be a criticism.

By the way, on my iPAD 3 i searched for "The Pelican" and you app did not appear. I had to search for "Pelican" and then click "See All"
 
ZipZap said:
Do wait too long...momentum is important...and it will be a criticism.

By the way, on my iPAD 3 i searched for "The Pelican" and you app did not appear. I had to search for "Pelican" and then click "See All"
Click to expand...

I agree. Like everyone else who develops apps, we too have a lot more tasks than resources, but the retina issue is clearly one of the most important.

Regarding the search issue, seems odd. I'll try to add "the pelican" tag to the app in AppStore and see if it helps.

Thanks!
Ronen
 
spammerhamster said:
What makes this better than Zite, Taptu and the rest?
Click to expand...

We certainly don't think that The Pelican is better than Zite or other popular personalized magazines. We do however believe that it is quite different in it's approach.

For starters, it's not a personalized magazines. The Pelican does not require any personalisation but rather delivers the news from the best, hand picked sources for each category.

Another thing is the smart algorithm we designed for The Pelican. Instead of presenting the items by order of appearance, the algorithm uses traditional news logic - balancing between the most important and the most popular (interesting) items.

Last but not least - the design. The Pelican team has over twelve years of combined experience in print and digital newspapers design, and we believe it helped us create a very readable and coherent newspaper magazine. With some nice typography too :)


Hope this answers your question.
 
I too really enjoy the app. Are there any plans to incorporate a read it later type service in a future update?
 
Well my impressions so far.
I really like it, but some of the sources seem limited (like a lot of engadget on Tech, and no first page about the FIFA Euro -arguably the biggest event going on right now-, but the latter is probably just based on the fact this is an US-focused app). But I know it could be the algorithm and it's approach, in which case you probably would tell me to use a personalized news app ;)
The dark gray background doesn't do it for me, I'm not really fond of the combination.
Retina display seems not to be so impressively scarce on this one (maybe it's the fact I'm using RetinaPad?), so it was fine and not like other apps that I closed because they look cheesy and old.
It appears to be a bit of a memory hog? Closed two times on me.
I'd also second that "read it later" service add on, which in my mind is almost a must for this kind of app.

Asides from that I enjoy the app, I think it does a pretty good job.
 
ipsychedelic said:
Well my impressions so far.
I really like it, but some of the sources seem limited (like a lot of engadget on Tech, and no first page about the FIFA Euro -arguably the biggest event going on right now-, but the latter is probably just based on the fact this is an US-focused app). But I know it could be the algorithm and it's approach, in which case you probably would tell me to use a personalized news app ;)
The dark gray background doesn't do it for me, I'm not really fond of the combination.
Retina display seems not to be so impressively scarce on this one (maybe it's the fact I'm using RetinaPad?), so it was fine and not like other apps that I closed because they look cheesy and old.
It appears to be a bit of a memory hog? Closed two times on me.
I'd also second that "read it later" service add on, which in my mind is almost a must for this kind of app.

Asides from that I enjoy the app, I think it does a pretty good job.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the feedback.
I have to say that I agree with most of your comments, but I'd still like to address them:

As for FIFA Euro, just as you wrote, it's because most of the sources are US focused. Still, the opening item on Tech right now is "Remembering Alan Turing at 100", and it's nice to see that inelegant and important items can be just as popular as the lighter ones.

The dark grey background - some people like it, some don't. Personally I find the dark grey theme easier on the eyes while reading in the dark, but this is just me.

Retina - this is and issue and we'll address it.

Memory Hog. Basically, The Pelican should work quite well on all iPads since the "heavy lifting" is done on our servers. We tested the app on several first generation iPads just to be sure. As for the crashes you experienced, this is a "bad thing" and I'd really like to know if it keeps happening.

Read It Later - we didn't think it was that important, but you guys are starting to change our minds.

Please keep your comments coming. We are trying to figure out priorities for the next updates, and this is exactly the kind of stuff that helps.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back